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Developing a Vocabulary Level Test for Learners Who Prepare for a Civil-Service Examination

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The current study is twofold; it demonstrates how to (1) develop a corpus-based vocabulary level test and (2) validate the test, especially for those who prepare for the English section of a civil-service examination in Korea. Out of the 294,911,732 tokens, garnered from the actual English tests of the civil-service examination administered between 2004 and 2017, we first made the 6,500-word list and selected 75 test words by using stratified random sampling. Seventy-four undergraduate students completed taking both the newly developed vocabulary level test and Beglar and Nation’s (2007) Vocabulary Level Test. With the malfunctioning items deleted, Cronbach’s alpha and KR-20 were estimated as .87. The test turned out to be valid as well because of the following reasons; (1) a medium but significant correlation between the vocabulary frequency and the item facility, (2) a medium but significant correlation between participants’ performance on the newly developed vocabulary test and that on Beglar and Nation’s vocabulary level test, and finally (3) the D-study variance component estimate originating from the person (test takers) facet. Further discussed are the practical implications and the limitations of the study.

Abstract

The current study is twofold; it demonstrates how to (1) develop a corpus-based vocabulary level test and (2) validate the test, especially for those who prepare for the English section of a civil-service examination in Korea. Out of the 294,911,732 tokens, garnered from the actual English tests of the civil-service examination administered between 2004 and 2017, we first made the 6,500-word list and selected 75 test words by using stratified random sampling. Seventy-four undergraduate students completed taking both the newly developed vocabulary level test and Beglar and Nation’s (2007) Vocabulary Level Test. With the malfunctioning items deleted, Cronbach’s alpha and KR-20 were estimated as .87. The test turned out to be valid as well because of the following reasons; (1) a medium but significant correlation between the vocabulary frequency and the item facility, (2) a medium but significant correlation between participants’ performance on the newly developed vocabulary test and that on Beglar and Nation’s vocabulary level test, and finally (3) the D-study variance component estimate originating from the person (test takers) facet. Further discussed are the practical implications and the limitations of the study.

참고문헌 (51)

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