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VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI
UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES
FACULTY OF POST-GRADUATE STUDIES LÊ THỊ HƯƠNG THẢO A SUGGESTION ON
DESIGNING A FINAL ACHIEVEMENT TEST
FOR GENERAL ENGLISH 2 TO NON-ENGLISH MAJORS
AT HANOI UNIVERSITY OF INDUSTRY
(MỘT ĐỀ XUẤT THIẾT KẾ ĐỀ THI HẾT HỌC PHẦN
TIẾNG ANH CẤP ĐỘ 2 CHO SINH VIÊN HỆ KHÔNG CHUYÊN
TẠI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC CÔNG NGHIỆP HÀ NỘI)
M.A THESIS Training course: MA. in TEFL No 1
Code: 60. 14.10 HA NOI, 2010


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PART B: DEVELOPMENT …………………………………………
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CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW ………………………………………
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I.1. BASIC CONCEPTS OF TEST AND TESTING ……………………
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I.2. TYPES OF TEST AND TESTING …………………………………
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I.2.1. Diagnostic tests ………………………………………………
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I.2.2. Placement tests ………………………………………………
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I.2.3. Achievement tests …………………………………………
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I.2.4. Proficiency tests ……………………………………………
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I.2.5. Direct versus Indirect testing ………………………………
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I.2.6. Discrete point versus Integrative testing …………….…….
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I.2.7. Norm-referenced versus criterion referenced testing …….
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I.2.8. Objectives testing versus Subjective testing ……………….
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I.2.9. Communicative Language Testing ………………………

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II.2.2. Questionnaires …………….………………………………
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II.3. SUBJECTS OF THE STUDY ……………………………….………
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II.3.1. General view of the population ……………………… ……
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II.3.2. The representative of the population involve in the study …
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II.4. DATA COLLECTION PROCUDURES …………………………
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II.5. SUMMARY ……………………………………………… ………
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CHAPTER III: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION ………………………

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III.1. DATA ANALYSIS ………………………………….………………

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III.1.1. Current final achievement test for GE2………… ……
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III.1.2. Proposed final achievement test for GE2 ………………
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III.2. MAJOR FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION …………………………
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III.2.1. Findings ……………………………………………………
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LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES
FIGURES
Figure 1: Usefulness ………………………………………………………………….
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Figure 2: Role of English result to students‟ learning ………………………………
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Figure 3: Students‟ attitude towards the existing final achievement test for GE2 …
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Figure 4: Students‟ complete percentage of the existing test ………………………
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Figure 5: Students‟ attitude towards time allowance ………………………………
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Figure 6: Teachers‟ opinion about time allowance …………………………………
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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

GE : General English
ESP: English for Specific Purposes
MA: Master of Art
TLU: Target Language Use
HaUI : Hanoi University of Industry
ULIS: University of Languages and International Studies

1987): proficiency, placement, diagnosis, and achievement. These four categories are probably
emphasized because they fit neatly with four of the fundamental types of decisions that must
be made in language programs. In this study, the author focuses on the achievement category
for the following reasons: 11

 The achievement test helps teachers to have some idea of the amount of language that
each students attain in a given period of time with very specific reference to a
particular program.
 The result of the final achievement test has decisive role in the result of the subject in
each semester; therefore, it must be designed directly linked to the program and
objectives.
 The information gained in an achievement test can also be put to good use in
reexamining the need analysis, in selecting or creating materials and teaching
strategies, and in evaluating program effectiveness.
 The development of systematic achievement tests is crucial to the evolution of a
systematic curriculum
From the reasons above, an achievement test assures its important role in evaluation of an
English course. However, the English testing for General English 2 to non-English major at
Hanoi University of Industry (HaUI) has the following characteristics:
 It has not been given adequate attention to and carefully studied.
 Test content is sometimes found to be unrelated to the objectives of the course and
very often many test items included in some tests have not been covered in class.
 It has been complained that there is still a gap between what is taught and what is
tested. An instant for this would be the case when tests designed for pre-intermediate
level are given to students of elementary. In fact, such tests are not valid and reliable.
They are so difficult that only few students can accomplish.
 Using tests exclusively for grading, there is no feedback about the tests

 To investigate the HaUI teachers‟ assessment of the main shortcoming of the existing
achievement tests for pre-intermediate students, concerning its contents, time
allowance and its format.
 To investigate the HaUI teachers‟ suggestions towards improving testing situations and
language tests at HaUI
 To propose an Achievement English Test construction for pre-intermediate students at
HaUI and a sample test as an example will be designed, basing on the proposed test
construction.
 To offer some practical suggestions for the improvement of testing at HaUI.
3. SCOPE OF THE STUDY 13

The study focuses on analyzing the existing testing situations at Hanoi University of
Industry, especially the present achievement tests for the first semester students. The design of
the Final Achievement Test for pre-intermediate students at HaUI is another great emphasis
of the study.

4. METHODOLOGY
To achieve the above aims, a study has been carried out with data collected from different
sources:
- A survey questionnaire carried out on 25 teachers of the English Department, HaUI to
investigate their comments of the existing achievement tests for the pre-intermediate
students and their opinions about the designing of a Sample Test.
- A survey questionnaire carried out on 125 students in eight different departments at
HaUI to investigate their viewpoints on the existing achievement tests for the pre-
intermediate students and their opinions about the designing of a Sample Test
- The Sample Test will be administered in eight different classes in eight different
departments with 70 pre-intermediate students of HaUI. The results of the Sample Test


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PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER I: LITERATURE REVIEW

I.1. BASIC CONCEPTS OF TEST AND TESTING

Testing is a universal feature of social life. Throughout history people have been put to
the test to prove their capabilities or to establish their credentials. Tests are defined differently
depending on researchers‟ point of view

Peny Ur (1996:33) provides the following definition of a test:
Test is an activity whose main purpose is to convey (usually to the tester) how well the testees
know or can do something

Caroll (1968:40) defines a test as follows:
A psychological or educational test is a procedure designed to elicit certain behavior from

communicative language testing. Each type of tests has its own characteristics. Let us now
consider a brief description of each type.

I.2.1. Diagnostic tests
According to Brown, J.D (1995b:112) diagnostic tests “are focused on the strengths
and weaknesses of each individual, the instructional objectives for purposes of correcting
deficiencies “before it is too late”. Hughes (1989:13) also shares this point of view with
Brown by noting that “diagnostic tests are used to identify students‟ strengths and weaknesses.
They are intended primarily to ascertain what further teaching is necessary.” From these
definitions, it is clear that diagnostic test aims at identify the test-taker‟s strong and weak
points in the language, as well as to attempt to explain why certain problems occur, and what
treatment can be assigned to foster achievement by promoting strengths and eliminating
weaknesses.

I.2.2. Placement tests
Brown, J.D (1995:110) indicates that “placement tests are designed to facilitate the
grouping of students according to their general level of ability.” He proposes that “the purpose
of a placement test is to show which students in a program have more of, or less of, a 17

particular ability, knowledge, or skill.” Khoa (1999:13) shares with the concept that placement
test is a test, which is designed to place students at an appropriate level in a programme or
course. So as a rule, the results of placement tests are needed quickly so that teaching may
begin (Harrison, 1983:4)

I.2.3. Achievement tests
According to McNamara (2000:6), “achievement tests are associated with the process
of instruction … Achievement tests accumulate evidence during, or at the end of, a course of

focus on overall language ability without reference to any particular program (and its
objectives, teaching, and materials). Likewise, a proficiency test looks to the future situation
of language use without necessarily any reference to the previous process of teaching
(McManama 2000:7).

In short, proficiency tests may be necessary in determining exit and entrance standards
for a curriculum, in adjusting the level of goals and objectives to the true abilities of the
students, or in making comparisons across program. Despite the fact that proficiency tests are
general in nature, they are nevertheless very important in most language program.

I.2.5. Direct versus Indirect testing
Hughes,A (2003:17) claimed that direct testing requires the learners to perform
precisely the skill which the testers wish to measure. Take an example, the teachers want to
test the students‟ writing skill, get them to write.
On the contrary, the purpose of indirect testing is to measure the abilities which
“underline” the skills in which the testers are interested (Hughes, 1991:15).

I.2.6. Discrete point versus Integrative testing
Related to the testing of one element at a time, item by item, discrete point testing is
another kind of tests. The concept of discrete point testing might involve testing different
aspects of knowledge in isolation; for example, a series of items each testing particular
grammatical structure. By contrast, integrative testing, as its name suggests, requires the
students to combine many language elements in the completion of a task. It might be writing a
composition, taking a dictation or completing a cloze test.

I.2.7. Norm-referenced versus criterion referenced testing
Richards, Platt & Weber (1985:68) define that a criterion referenced test (CRT) is: 19

was recognized more or less immediately on its appearance, it took a decade for its actual
impact on practice to be felt, in the development of communicative language tests.
Based upon the theory of language and language use, Brown (1995:16) proposes two
features of communicative language tests:
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i. They were performance tests, requiring assessment to be carried out when the learners
or candidate was engaged in an extended act of communication, either receptive or
productive, or both.
ii. They paid attention to the social roles candidates were likely to assure in real world
settings, and offered a means of specifying the demands of such roles in detail

The second of these features distinguishes communicative language tests from the
integrative/pragmatic testing tradition.

I.3. CHARACTERISTICS OF A USEFUL TEST
There has been many arguments among qualities of a good test as there are more or
less independent characteristic and emphasize the need to maximize them all. Hughes (1989)
expressed that although there is a tension among the different test qualities, this need not lead
to the total abandoned of any. Bachman and Palmer (1996:18) have the same point of view
who share that “rather than emphasizing the tension among the different qualities, test
developers need to recognize their complementary”. They also add that “test developers need
to find an appropriate balance among these qualities, and that this will vary from one testing
situation to another”. Therefore, they come to the notion of a good test which must be useful
with qualities expressed in figure:
be demonstrated that it measures just the ability which it is supposed to measure. In
Bachman‟s and Palmer„s opinion “construct validity pertains to the meaningfulness and
appropriateness of the interpretations that we make on the basis of test scores” (1996).
Construct is defined as the specific definition of an ability that provides the basis for a given
test or test task and for interpreting scores derived from this task. From this point of view, we
can interpret a given test score as an indicator of the ability we want to measure thanks to the
construct validity of the test.
I.3.3. Authenticity
Authenticity is closely related to construct validity in developing a useful test.
McNamara (2000:9) defines authenticity as “the degree to which test materials and test
conditions succeed in replicating those in the target use situation”. Bachman and Palmer 22

(1996) argue that “authenticity as the degree of correspondence of the characteristics of a
given language test task to the feature of a target language use (TLU) task.” Authenticity
relates the test task to the domain of generalization to which we want our score interpretation
to generalize and it provides a means for investigating the extent to which score interpretations
generalize beyond performance on the test to language use in the TLU domain, or to other
similar non-test language use domains.
I.3.4. Interactiveness
Bachman and Palmer define interactiveness “as the extent and type of involvement of
the test takers‟ individual characteristic in accomplishing a test task”. Thus, the interactiveness
of a given language test task can be characterized in terms of the ways in which the test takers‟
areas of language knowledge, meta-cognitive strategies, topical knowledge and affective
schemata are engaged by the test task.
Unlike authenticity which pertains to the correspondence between test task and TLU
task, interactiveness resides the interaction between the individual (test taker or language user)
and the task (test or TLU).

administration, scoring and interpretation. A test is impractical in case it is prohibitively
expensive and it takes much time to construct.
In short, a practical test should not be involved in much time and money for designing,
implementing and scoring.
I.4. TEST ITEMS
Test items classification varies slightly from test researchers. For example, Moore
(1988) indicates that there are basically two types of items used by teachers in the construction
of classroom tests: objective and subjective items. Brown (1995) also divides into two main
types of items which are receptive: true-false, multiple choice, matching and productive: fill-24

in, short-response, essay, extended discourse task. Hereby, we will look into each type of test
items.
I.4.1. Receptive test items
I.4.1.1. Multiple choice
In a test that has items formatted as multiple choice questions, a candidate would be
given a number of set answers for each question, and the candidate must choose which answer
or group of answers is correct.

I.4.1.2. True-False Items
According to Wiersma and Jurs (1990), true-false items are essentially statements to
which the students respond either true or false (or yes or no, right or wrong). For responding to
the items, the students are usually requested to circle T or F.

I.4.1.3. Matching Items
The matching item, as its name implies, requires the student to use some association
criterion in order to match the words or phrased that represent ideas, concepts, principles, or
things.


I.5. SUMMARY
Chapter I has briefly discussed testing terminology in the literature and concerned with
the issues relating to different test types in the testing theoretical background. Nine categories
of test have been introduced, including of diagnostic; placement; achievement; proficiency;
direct versus indirect testing; discrete-point/integrative; norm-referenced versus criterion-
referenced testing; objective-subjective testing; and communicative language testing. The
notions of characteristic of a useful test have been presented. Finally, the types of test items
have been introduced.

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CHAPTER II: METHODOLOGY

This chapter focuses on the research methods with four sections. The first section
shows the two research questions, followed by the description of the subjects and data
collection instruments. The third section to come is the data collection procedures. And the
last section deals with the summary of the methodology applied in the study.
II.1. RESEARCH QUESTIONS
1. What are the attitudes of teachers and students towards the current final
achievement test to GE2 at HaUI?
2. Is there a significant difference between the result of the current final
achievement test and that of the proposed final achievement test?
II.2. DATA COLLECTION INSTRUMENTS

there are five questions to collect information concerning their attitude towards the current
final achievement test. The third part includes three questions to collect information
concerning their expectations toward the new final achievement test for GE2.
II.3. SUBJECTS OF THE STUDY
II.3.1. General view of the population
(i). The learners – the test takers
In general, most of the first year students are at the age of 18 - 22. They are mostly
male students, coming from different provinces all over the country. The biggest problem is
that they did not pay attention to English at High school; they focused on learning
Mathematics, Physics and Chemists for the university entrance exam. Their knowledge of
English seems to be very poor; some of them (10%) even have never studied English. Instead
of learning English, they studied French, Russian or Chinese at secondary and high school.
Therefore, time goes by, they feel bored and tired as they cannot catch up with the others, who
have studied English at secondary and high schools. The other problem is that most of the
students do not consider English as their major, so they do not pay much attention to studying 28

English. This gives the teachers at the University a number of work to interest or even force
them to learn English.
Besides, English is not their favorite subjects. Most of students are not really interested
in learning English due to the fact that they find it difficult to learn and use English skills,
especially listening, speaking and writing. One of the reasons is that they are familiar with the
traditional teaching methods at secondary and high school with the focus on Grammar.

(ii). The teaching staff
For the great demand of learning English, the English teaching staff at HaUI consists
of 60 teachers. All of them are well-trained at Hanoi University or College of Foreign
Languages-Vietnam National University, Hanoi. However, half of them are young teachers