LexCH: a quick and reliable receptive vocabulary size test for Chinese Learners

Abstract

The measurement of vocabulary size is crucial in applied linguistics research. Although increasing attention has been given to the study of Chinese vocabulary assessment, few reliable and valid tools are available to evaluate Chinese learners’ receptive vocabulary size, particularly for teenagers and adults. We aim to fill this gap by developing LexCH, a quick, reliable and free receptive vocabulary size assessment tool that researchers and language teachers can readily adopt. In developing LexCH, we chose items covering a range of difficulty levels and with strong discriminative power as test items for the final version of LexCH based on item response theory. In total, 480 students from a junior high school and a high school in China participated in this study. Our initial validation results suggest that LexCH is a reliable and valid receptive vocabulary size test for L1 Chinese speakers; it also shows great potential for use among L2 Chinese learners. Implications for assessing receptive vocabulary size in Chinese learning are provided.