英語テスト項目の無解答率と内容と項目特有の要因、及び英語力との関係の解明

抄録

Although performance tests are indispensable in English language education to assess and develop students’ communication ability in English, large-scale English achievement test results have revealed that more than 10% of Japanese students tend not to respond to writing and speaking items. This research aims to investigate relationships between the non-response rates and the content-and item-specific factors as well as test-takers’ English ability using the 977,250 test-taker data from the junior high school English test of the 2019 National Assessment of Academic Ability. The non-response rates of the items for productive skills tended to be higher than those for receptive skills. The non-response rates of skill-integrated items were high at more than 20%. The non-response rates of single-skill items in the writing section were lower than 12%. The non-response rates for speaking tended to be higher than those for writing for the highest English-level students. The lowest English-level students tended not to respond to gap-filling items assessing accuracy in language use and constructed-response items to express their opinions. The correlation coefficient between the correct-response rates and non-response rates in multiple-choice items was higher than those in the brief-constructed and constructed response items. Ways to lower the non-response rates in English tests are discussed for each English level.