CHAPTER l INTRODUCTION
In the field of English Language Teaching， whether it is in a classroom environment or in a re search environment， many situations exist where some sort of assessment has to be undertaken． In such cases， it is the responsibility of the teacher or the researcher to come up with a goodうtest that allows fbr accurate measurements oftest takers English abilities．
This applies to many of the English Language Teaching situations in Japan， too．
Traditionally， in Japan， testing students reading ability took the fbml of translation，
where students were asked to put certain amount of English in a passage into its Japanese translation． This practice has received quite a lot of criticisms from language testing specialists on the acco皿t that being able to translate English to Japanese requires too many skills other than just reading skills． Tbday， with the progress made in the research of language testing and with many types of language proficiency tests available to English leamers in Japa血， teachers， even if they are not specifically trained in testing， became aware that a variety of ways exist in testing their English abilities， and that some ways seem better than others．
Because the skills that are required in certain language activities， such as reading， are not directly observable， what test constructors do in making tests is to make hypothesized inferences about the ability that they want to measure． This is called a construct． The test constnlctors make tests so that the tests would measure the ability they want to measure through activating skills hypothesized in their construct． The extent to which a test measures what it purports to measure is called construct validity， so a good test would be the one in which construct validity i s high．
In the case of a translation test， its construct validity as a measurement of reading ability is low because it measures many skills other than the reading skills．
With the development of computers and advancement in statistical measures，
many of the English proficiency tests available in Japan became computerized． This allowed more people to have the chance to get to know their English ability． On the part of language testers， it compelled them to develop tests that would illustrate test
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東京外国語大学 博士学位論文 Doctoral thesis (Tokyo University of Foreign Studies)
takers English ability with more preciseness and more generalizability． Rather than just judging if a person possesses a high or low ability of English， their interest
now is to delineate what can be done and what ca皿ot be done when a person is at a
certain level． Exemplified by the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages （CEFR）and the A口E℃an Do statements， the demands fbr explicit
explanations of English ability are ever more increasing．The present study was皿dertaken with the incentive to investigate how reading test items could be employed to delineate the reading construct in a reading test． It proposes the concept of question types and makes an attempt to validate if test items could be constructed to elicit the elements of reading described by these
曹浮?唐狽奄盾氏@types ． Furthermore， fbr the purpose of investigating into how this notion
could be implemented in constructing a test item to illustrate the sequence of how reading ability develops， a link between question types and item difficulty will be sought．
Befbre any fUrther discussion proceeds， it might be appropriate to give a brief outline of the present thesis． In Chapter 2， the nature of reading ability from the perspective of its latent structure is investigated， refiecting on the product of fbreign language reading as a result of fbreign language reading process う． Chapter 3will explore how a construct of reading ability could be described by developing test items that elicit the product of test takers reading comprehension． A discussion of reading competence with regard to reading performance will be developed，
and the significance of employing question types to specifシthe components of a test item as well as the possibility of quantifying these question types will be
proposed． The research questions along with the research methodology of the
present research will be introduced in Chapter 4． The results obtained in the data collections mapped out in Chapter 4 will be provided in Chapter 5， and these results will be discussed in Chapter 6． The final statements will be made as a conclusion in Chapter 7．2
東京外国語大学 博士学位論文 Doctoral thesis (Tokyo University of Foreign Studies)
