Can the National Center Test in Japan Be Replaced by Commercially Available Private English Tests of Four Skills? In the Case of TOEFL Junior Comprehensive

Autor/in	Kamiya, Nobuhiro
Titel	Can the National Center Test in Japan Be Replaced by Commercially Available Private English Tests of Four Skills? In the Case of TOEFL Junior Comprehensive
Quelle	In: Language Testing in Asia, 7 (2017), Artikel 15 (22 Seiten) PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Zusatzinformation	ORCID (Kamiya, Nobuhiro)
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	2229-0443
DOI	10.1186/s40468-017-0046-z
Schlagwörter	English (Second Language); Language Tests; Second Language Learning; High School Graduates; College Admission; Scores; Language Skills; Correlation; Factor Analysis; Grade 12; Comparative Analysis; High School Students; Goodness of Fit; Language Proficiency; Foreign Countries; Japan; Test of English as a Foreign Language + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? English as second language; English; Second Language; Englisch als Zweitsprache; Language test; Sprachtest; Zweitsprachenerwerb; High school; High schools; Graduate; Graduates; Oberschule; Absolvent; Absolventin; Hochschulzugang; Hochschulzulassung; Zulassung; Language skill; Sprachkompetenz; Korrelation; Faktorenanalyse; School year 12; 12. Schuljahr; Schuljahr 12; Student; Students; Schüler; Schülerin; Studentin; Language skills; Ausland
Abstract	The National Center Test is a test that high school graduates take in order to be matriculated into the majority of universities in Japan. Its English section (NCT), though, is scheduled to be replaced by commercially available private English tests of four skills (reading, listening, speaking, writing) due to the fact that NCT currently measures only the receptive skills of reading and listening. A concern has been raised, however, regarding the score comparability between NCT and those tests of four skills. Thus, this study was conducted in order to examine to what extent the score of NCT and TOEFL Junior Comprehensive (JC)--one of the commercially available private English tests of four skills--correlate with each other and to what extent their test constructs overlap from the viewpoint of L2 competence structure.One hundred forty-four twelfth graders in Japan took NCT and JC. Pearson's correlations and an exploratory factor analysis (maximum likelihood) were conducted. Moreover, confirmatory factor analyses and chi-square difference tests were performed in order to compare several models.The results show that the scores of the two tests are highly correlated with each other, indicating that JC can be a proper candidate to replace NCT. Moreover, an exploratory factor analysis revealed that all of the six scores can be subsumed under a single factor. According to the results of a series of confirmatory factor analyses and chi-square difference tests?, the correlated skill model was shown to be the best fit model, but the unitary model was almost equally a good fit as well.The results overall indicate that, regardless of tests and skills to measure, English proficiency as a general construct may determine the major portion of these scores. This poses the question of whether, in order to assess learners' English proficiency, all four skills need to be measured separately. (As Provided).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2024/1/01