With the reform of foreign language education in China, students are expected to become capable communicators in cross-cultural context after taking English courses in tertiary education. To achieve this goal, critical thinking ability and intercultural competence have been identified as core abilities for EFL learners by official documents guiding college English teaching in China. In response, a new language test – English Test for International Communication (ETIC) – has been developed and administered to assess the core abilities. Different from conventional language testing practice which takes language ability as the single construct, ETIC has adopted a multi-dimensional construct, integrating critical thinking ability and intercultural competence. When the test results are supposed to be widely applied, it is therefore necessary to investigate how well such abilities have been reflected by the test, in other words, to validate the test.
Following Bachman and Palmer (2010) AUA framework of test validation, evidence of test validation could be collected from the perspective of test developers, raters and test-takers. Although investigating test-takers performance should be the starting step and could provide most valuable information (Bachman & Palmer, 2010), relevant studies have been quite limited. In addition, to validate a language test with a multi-dimensional construct from test-takers' perspective has not yet been approached.
The present study aims to address the gap by investigating test-takers' performance in a writing task from ETIC. In order to understand how the construct abilities of critical thinking ability and intercultural competence are involved in task accomplishment, this study examines both test-takers' responses and test-taking processes. To enable a confident claim about construct validity, two parallel forms of the task are included for investigating the consistency of abilities engagement across test forms. Specifically, the following research questions are answered:
1. To what extent are critical thinking ability and intercultural competence engaged in the ETIC writing task as revealed by task responses and test-taking processes?
2. Are critical thinking ability and intercultural competence equally involved in the task responses and test-taking processes of the parallel two task forms?
Data are collected from thirty-six college students. Thirty participants finish the two task forms under exam-like conditions and altogether sixty responses are obtained. In order to collect test-taking process data, six participants complete the two task forms while thinking aloud, followed by stimulated recall interviews. The data are coded and analyzed by adopting Paul and Elder (2006) three-dimensional model for critical thinking ability and the adapted Deardorff (2006) pyramid model for intercultural competence. Findings can provide implications for EFL testing and teaching practice that aims at integrating multiple abilities.
Bibliography
Bachman, L. F. & Palmer, A. S. (2010). Language Assessment in Practice: Developing Language Assessments and Justifying Their Use in the Real World. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Deardorff，D. (2006). Identification and assessment of intercultural competence as a student outcome of internationalization. Journal of Studies in Intercultural Education, (3): 241-266．
Paul, R. & Elder, I. (2006). Critical Thinking: Learn the Tools the Best Thinkers Use. New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall.
