TY - JOUR AU - Badrasawi, Kamal J I AU - Abu Kassim, Noor Lide AU - Mat Daud, Nuraihan PY - 2017/06/28 Y2 - 2024/03/29 TI - THE EFFECTS OF TEST CHARACTERISTICS ON THE HIERARCHICAL ORDER OF READING SKILLS JF - Malaysian Journal of Learning and Instruction JA - MJLI VL - 14 IS - 1 SE - Articles DO - 10.32890/mjli2017.14.1.3 UR - https://e-journal.uum.edu.my/index.php/mjli/article/view/mjli2017.14.1.3 SP - 63-82 AB - <div><strong>Purpose</strong>&nbsp;– The study sought to determine the hierarchical nature&nbsp;of reading skills. Whether reading is a ‘unitary’ or ‘multi-divisible’&nbsp;skill is still a contentious issue. So is the hierarchical order of reading&nbsp;skills. Determining the hierarchy of reading skills is challenging&nbsp;as item difficulty is greatly influenced by factors related to test&nbsp;characteristics. To examine the interaction between these factors&nbsp;and item difficulty, and determine the possibility of such a hierarchy,&nbsp;this study used the multifaceted Rasch approach.</div><div><br><strong>Methodology</strong>&nbsp;– In this descriptive study, a 42-MCQ reading test&nbsp;was administered to 944 ESL lower secondary students, randomly&nbsp;selected from eleven Malaysian national-type schools in the Federal&nbsp;Territory of Kuala Lumpur and the state of Selangor. These student&nbsp;populations were selected as the development of reading ability was&nbsp;considered critical at this stage of schooling. The reading test items&nbsp;were identified according to the following aspects: Reading Skill&nbsp;Areas (Interpreting information, making Inference, Understanding&nbsp;figurative language, Drawing conclusions, Scanning for details and Finding word meanings), Context Type (Linear and Non-Linear),&nbsp;and Text Type (Ads, Notice, Chart, Story extract, Short message,&nbsp;Poem, Short news report, Brochure, Formal letter, Conversation,&nbsp;Long passage and weather forecast). Applying the Many-Facet&nbsp;Rasch model of measurement, the study analyzed student responses&nbsp;to the test items with the help of FACETS, version 3.7.1.4.</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div><strong>Findings</strong>&nbsp;– The findings showed that context types, skill areas, and&nbsp;text types differed in difficulty (p&lt;.01), with those items that required&nbsp;understanding and interpretation being more demanding. Test items&nbsp;based on linear contexts were more difficult than those based on&nbsp;non-linear contexts. Understanding figurative language was found&nbsp;to be the most difficult skill followed by Making inference and&nbsp;Interpreting information. The easiest reading skill was Scanning&nbsp;for details, followed by Finding word meanings. The reading skill,&nbsp;Drawing conclusions, was close to the average difficulty level. The&nbsp;findings also indicated that texts that were longer and had more&nbsp;information tended to be more difficult.</div><div><br><strong>Significance</strong>&nbsp;– This study has also shed new light on the theory and&nbsp;practice of reading. The findings support the hierarchical nature of&nbsp;reading skills. Different reading skills were found to exert differential&nbsp;cognitive demands, and those which required higher cognitive&nbsp;ability were more difficult for learners to acquire and perform.&nbsp;Understanding the hierarchy of reading skills will help language&nbsp;teachers to target their teaching more effectively; course designers&nbsp;to produce more appropriate teaching and learning materials; and&nbsp;test writers to develop test items that better meet students’ reading&nbsp;competencies.</div><p>&nbsp;</p> ER -