三种听写评分标准的比较研究

A Comparative Analysis of the Three Scoring Criteria of Dictation

近年来,由于听写这一测试方式被国内不少大型英语测试所采用,于是出现了相当数量的研究论文,但对听写评分标准的关注却很有限.我国大学专业英语四级(简称专四)测试中听写部分所采用的评分方法是以意块(chunk)为单位,因而经常出现考生写得很多却得分不高甚至得零分的现象.而且,这种评分方法同目前国外文献中提到的两种听写评分方法(Oller的单词评分法和Cziko的意块评分法)也有明显的不同.那么一个很自然的问题是:专业英语四级测试中听写的评分方法是否能较准确地反映考生在这方面的能力.本研究表明,专四听写的评分方法更能反映听写是一种综合性的测试(integrative test),因而比另两种方法更为理想.对这三种评分标准的实证研究表明:1)这三种方法评分得出的听写分数有很高的相关性;2)专四评分法得出的听写分数与其他测试项得分和总分的相关度略低于用单词评分法得出的听写分数与其他测试项得分和总分的相关度.为此笔者认为,专四听写评分法尽管不同于广受认可的单词评分法,但还是能较好地反映受测试者的语言水平.

As dictation has been used in many large-scale exams in the country in recent years, a number of research papers have been published. However, not enough attention is paid to the scoring criteria of dictation. The scoring criteria of TEM4 dictation have chunks rather than words as the scoring unit, and accordingly we sometimes see test takers receive low scores though they have filled the page. On the other hand, the two scoring criteria mentioned in the literature (Oller's word scoring method and Cziko's segment scoring method) are different from the TEM4 scoring criteria. A question thus arises: does the latter accurately reflect the abilities of the test takers? It is demonstrated from the present study that the TEM4 dictation scoring criteria better reflect dictation as an integrative test. The comparative study between the three scoring methods indicates that (1) there is a high correlation between the dictation scores achieved with these three different scoring criteria, and that (2) the correlation of the dictation score graded using TEM 4 scoring criteria with both the scores of the other test tasks and the total score is a little bit lower than the correlation between the dictation score graded using word scoring method and the scores of other test tasks and the total score. It is therefore concluded that the TEM4 dictation scoring criteria, though different from the widely accepted word scoring method, can reflect test takers' language proficiency.