Statistical Analysis on Reading & Listening of Secondary Level ESL Students

Abstract

The present study investigates the item analysis of both reading and listening in order to uphold the test effectiveness and fairness to enhance the exam quality. Language testing is as important as language teaching itself. Accordingly, testing and evaluation is the process by which a system is compared against requirements and specifications through testing various principles of language testing are taken into account by the test makers when designing tests. Fifty grade ten female students participated from Swarnapali Girls‟ College, in Anuradhapura. The medium of instruction for the test takers was both Sinhala and English. Two pretests, based on listening and reading were conducted to identify the level of the students according to UTEL benchmark. Analyzing the results of two pretests, the benchmark was identified as 4 and 3 for reading and listening respectively. In the post-tests, the test constructs for reading test were, reading for gist, reading for important details and reading for main ideas and supporting details while test constructs for reading were, reading for gist, listening for specific information and reading for main ideas and supporting details. The data were analyzed statistically via SPSS. Findings of the item analysis concluded that 82.4% or the majority preferred multiple choice questions rather than gap filling in the listening test and short answer questions were preferred more than synonym writing in the reading test. Thus, it can be concluded that listening test paper is more effective compared to the reading test paper. The results of the present study serve to find out the nature and the state of the students' proficiency, these tests can be conducted and the results will be a source, which provides valuable ideas, and suggestions that are considered for the remedial measures to be followed in the future course of action in language teaching process.