Instructors' perceptions of the content validity of the English language exams at Niğde University

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to find out the teachers’ perceptions of whether the content of the tests items reflect the content of the coursebook and their teaching. An equally important purpose is to find out whether the instructors follow the coursebook content in their teaching. This study attempted to find out these research questions: 1. Are there any significant differences among Niğde University English Instructors in terms of whether they think final test items reflect the content of the coursebook? 2. Are there any significant differences among Niğde University English Instructors in terms of whether they think final test items reflect their teaching? 3. What is the relationship between teachers’ perceptions of the relationship of the tests to the content of the coursebook and their teaching? Data was collected from sixteen English teachers of Niğde University through a questionnaire which was consist of 40 test items chosen randomly among five final English tests which were taken from English instructors. To analyse the results of the questionnaire, quantitative analysis methods were used in this study. Chi-square statistical analysis was used to analyse the data. The results of the first research question indicate that instructors generally think the test items reflect the content of the coursebook they use. In other words the instructors feel the tests have content validity. Results of the second research question show that instructors generally think that the test items reflect their teaching. The results of the third research question indicate that instructors follow the coursebook content in their teaching. A further examination of the test items indicates that there are 13 problematic items within the tests. The categories of these problematic items are : multiple correct answers, response cues, no correct answer, number of options, and translation. There are some precautions that can be taken in order to reduce the number of problematic items in the tests. One of them is peer review which instructors check each other’s tests. An in-service training may be very useful for the instructors on testing and it may be a good solution of raising the content validity of the tests.