Assessment literacy of secondary EFL teachers: Evidence from a regional EFL test

Abstract

This study investigated the assessment skills of secondary EFL teachers through analyzing the quality of test items on a municipal English examination for eighth graders in a city located in northern China. Data included students' answers to test items as well as a post-test questionnaire and teachers' responses to semi-structured interviews. It was found that overall, the test functioned satisfactorily, with most items moderately easy yet discriminating, and high internal consistency and strong correlations among subscale scores. However, item analysis and content review of the test identified some items with incorrect or multiple keys, which may result from a combination of EFL teachers' inadequate language proficiency and their attempts to write attractive distractors.