Correlations Between the Paper and Listening Tests in English Proficiency Administered by the National Center Test for University Admission in 2006

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the correlations between the paper and listening tests of English proficiency administered by the National Center Test for University Admission or Daigaku Nyugakusha Senbatsu Daigaku Nyushi Center Shiken (hereafter the Center Test) in 2006, when the listening test was introduced for the first time. The analyses were conducted based on data from 244 third-grade high school students who took both tests. The results showed that there was a moderate positive correlation between the paper as a whole and the listening tests. A closer examination revealed that the listening test was also moderately correlated with two sections of the paper test: grammatical knowledge and reading comprehension of a narrative. However, there was only a very weak correlation between the listening test and the section on pronunciation, word stress and sentence stress in the paper test Other findings are as follows: (a) The listening test had the same high level of reliability as the paper test; (b) The listening test had the same level of item discrimination but (c) a lower level of item difficulty. Some suggestions for future test construction are drawn from these findings.