Content Validity of Compulsory English Grade Eight Test

Abstract

This present study entitled “Content Validity of Compulsory English Grade Eight Test” aims at finding out the content validity in terms of content coverage and content weighting. To complete this task, she used secondary sources of data and collected the test papers administrated in the district level during 2063 to 2066, on the basis of judgmental sampling procedure. She analyzed the collected data in order to see whether the administered test items were the representative sample of the course objectives/contents and or the weighting of the test contents were proportional to the syllabus or not. For the purpose of examining content coverage she matched the test content language items with the course content language items and it is found that 70% of the language items were represented in the tests during (2063 to 2066) four years’ examination. For the purpose of examining content weighting, the researcher calculated the total weighting of the test contents skillwise and yearwise and matched with the specification grid. Then she found that it has exact content validity in terms of content weighting during these four years’ examination. The study has been presented in four chapters: Introduction, Methodology, Analysis and Interpretation and Findings and Recommendations. The first chapter consists of general background, language, the English language, English language teaching, language testing, qualities of a good language test; validity, reliability, administrability, scorability, economy, washback, types of validity; content validity, construct validity, criterion related validity, face validity, review of the related literature, objectives of the study, significance of the study and definitions of key terms. The second chapter describes the methodology applied to carry out this research; it consists of secondary sources of data, tools used for collecting data, process of data collection and limitations of the study. The third chapter consists of analysis and interpretation of the obtained data in terms of content coverage and content weighting. The fourth chapter presents the findings derived from the analysis and interpretation of data. It also consists of recommendation to the teachers, students and learners for effective evaluation of English language. In the final section of the study the references and appendices are included.