摘要
The main objective of this paper was to investigate the test method effect of two writing tests on the performances of sixty sophomore English majors from China University of Mining and Technology, who were divided randomly into two experiment groups and took a reading-integrated writing test and a timed impromptu essay test respectively. Their essays were rated anonymously by two independent raters using the same rating scale with categories that measured content, organization, accuracy and vocabulary. Besides examination of the reliability, Many-Faceted Rasch analysis was applied to probe into the influence of domain difficulty and rater severity. Results of the comparison revealed four important findings. First, both two tests were reliable to be fair measures for assessing writing abilities. Second, significant difference was found between two groups in content, organization, and vocabulary, but no difference was observed in accuracy. Third, the reading tasks facilitated participants in generating ideas, organizing essays and using vocabularies. Finally, compared with the participants in the reading-integrated writing test, participants in the timed impromptu essay test met difficulties in using their vocabularies in the writing process. Findings implicated that 1) a reading-integrated writing test could be an alternative to a timed impromptu essay test in academic contexts, and 2) much more investigation was still needed to probe into the writing process and read-to-write process.
本研究旨在探索不同的写作测试方法对写作能力测试的影响。通过对比先读后写和命题作文两种测试方法对写作测试的影响,发现1)两种测试方法都能够对学生的习作水平作可靠的区分;2)阅读理解对受试在观点生成、内容组织及词汇的运用方面都有积极的影响,但对语言的准确性没有显著的影响;3)由于先读后写的测试方法有较好的反拨作用,所以可以作为测试学生学术写作能力的一种有效方法。
