During the second phase of the study, the two researchers used a structured questionnaire to investigate the testing practices of 12 EFL/ESL examination boards, touching upon such areas as test syllabus, test construction, validation, administration, marking, reports and post hoc analyses, and test revision.
The researchers assessed validity qualitatively by examining the core syllabus, exam blueprint, MCQ examination and course schedule to establish the proportion of curricular content tested on the examination.
The researchers examined 42 documents in both English and Chinese, including proficiency scales, teaching syllabuses, curriculum requirements, test specifications and rating scales, resulting in 1240 descriptors.
Descriptors are collected from both teachers' description of students' listening ability (with a sample of 159 teachers and 475 students at different educational stages and 119 professionals) and existing documents, both in English and Chinese, such as proficiency scales, teaching syllabuses, curriculum requirements, test specifications and rating scales.
You may have a syllabus, objectives, tests, loads of handouts and admin, but the students are why you are there.
During the process of the scale construction, various sources were made use of, including mainly, the TEM test syllabus, the teaching syllabus, and relevant CEFR descriptors.
The inclusion of some CEFR descriptors was meant to enrich the descriptor pool, as the descriptors from the TEM test syllabus and the teaching syllabus were mainly academic study-oriented.
Schools respond by shopping around among exam boards for the easiest syllabuses and tests, and directing pupils towards the softest subjects.
Third, there would be greater pressure to stick solely and rigidly to the test syllabus.
These functions were reflected in the test syllabus, which was developed based on the CEFR.
One of the TEM components is writing, which amounts to 20% of the total score (TEM test syllabus 2004).
