Abstract
Vocabulary Size Test (VST) is a test to measure learners’ receptive vocabulary size by Paul Nation. Beside English-English version, VST has other five bilingual versions. This article is to describe the validation of its Mandarin version, i.e., English-Chinese version. Data shows that the bilingual English-Chinese version VST’s overall difficulty index, discriminating power, and internal consistency are all statistically satisfactory. One-way ANOVA test and Post Hoc test evidenced that the English-Chinese version VST can differentiate learners from different levels with high validity.
Highlights
Meara (1996) pointed out “learner with large vocabulary is more proficient in each language skills than learners with small vocabulary, which suggests that vocabulary is an important factor in language.”Studies on vocabulary size attracted increasing attention from researchers in China
This paper is to study the validity of bilingual Mandarin version of Vocabulary Size Test (VST), i.e., whether English-Chinese bilingual VST is as effective as the bilingual English-English VST in testing the receptive vocabulary of Chinese students
This paper analyzed the validity of the bilingual Mandarin version of VST, namely, the English-Chinese bilingual VST (E-C VST)
Summary
Meara (1996) pointed out “learner with large vocabulary is more proficient in each language skills than learners with small vocabulary, which suggests that vocabulary is an important factor in language.”Studies on vocabulary size attracted increasing attention from researchers in China. Lu (2004) investigated that the freshmen in a leading science and engineer university in southwestern China had a vocabulary size of 2145. Lu (2004) pointed out that the different vocabulary testing tool accounted for the inconsistence in test results. Zhou et al (2008) argued that several factor had to be considered to ensure the validity of a scientific testing research, namely, the test designers’ definition of vocabulary size and vocabulary ability, sampling approach and ample resource etc. Tang and Han (2010) posited that, currently in China, researchers adopted different vocabulary testing tools without a universally-recognizable standard, which lead to immaturity in the application of testing tool. The study about the validity of different vocabulary testing tools is not adequately emphasized
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