语言测试之效度理论发展五十年

Language testing: Evolution of validity theory in the past 50 years

自20世纪60年代以来,语言测试与评估的研究一直围绕效度展开。效度理论在近半个多世纪取得了重大进展,尤其是80年代中期逐渐形成的“效度整体观”颠覆了“效度三分法”的统治,对当代效度研究产生了深远影响。但在我国应用语言学界,效度理论的发展尚未受到充分重视。本文首先梳理教育与心理测量学及语言测试领域中效度理论的演变,然后介绍效度验证的常用方法,最后指出“效度整体观”尚需进一步研究的问题。文章对Messick(1989)效度整体观的“渐进矩阵”模式提出了补充建议。

Since the 1960s, the central focus of language assessment and testing research has been on validity. The past five decades have witnessed rapid developments in validity theory. One notable event is that the emergence of the unified (unitary) validity theory in mid 1980s has ended the dominance of the 'Trinitarian doctrine' with a wide acceptance of the unified approach to validity and validation. Such new developments, however, have received little attention in the applied linguistics circle in China. The current paper begins by depicting the evolution of the validity theories in the past 50 years or so from two interrelated aspects: changes in educational and psychological measurement and developments in language testing, then provides a brief description of the common methods of validation, and finally points out some problems of the unified validity theory.