Analysis of the validity of METS (nursing Class) first-level examination and its effect on teaching

METS (Medical English test System) exam is a national examination by the Ministry of Education Test Center, China Medical Association, China Nursing Association jointly sponsored by the Chinese School of Medicine, is the national Medical college students and health technical personnel designed for the professional English test, To examine the application ability of medical professional English for examinees. The exam was listed as the National Intelligence "Eleven-Five" program Key project, the first Test in June 2007, the new examination syllabus introduced in 2010, reference to the level of relevant domestic examinations and influential international language proficiency standards system, such as the European Language Common reference framework (Common European Framework of Reference for LANGUAGESLEARNING,TEACHING,ASSESSMENT,CEFR), emphasizing systematization and practicality, highlighting the examination of communicative language competence.

Nursing English is the main course to train the professional English ability of nursing students, in recent years, its teaching reform has been vigorously carried out, we will METS (nursing) exam guidance into the normal nursing English course. This paper studies the validity and reliability of the test and its influence on the teaching reform of nursing English.

1 Research status of the backwash effect

The influence of language testing on language teaching and language learning is called the backwash effect or backwash effect of language testing. People's concern about the backwash effect of language testing can be traced back to the beginning of the 19th century, but the theoretical and empirical study on the role of anti-allocation has not been developed rapidly until the 1980s. In the the 1990s, the theoretical and empirical research on the role of anti-allocation is more in-depth and systematic, and the main research objects are large-scale international standardized tests, such as TOEFL, IELTS, and foreign language testing in countries. Domestic empirical research on the role of anti-allocation mainly focused on some large-scale examinations (such as college English CET test, English major 四、八级 exam), in recent years has also appeared in the college entrance examination of English test, but there is little research on the industry English or professional English test.

In accordance with the definition of Alderson and wall, the backwash effect usually refers to the extent to which the use of a test affects the behavior of language teachers and learners, and their behavior is generated in the context of testing, which promotes or restricts language learning. Hughes argues that teaching and testing should be "partnerships," where teaching and testing are interrelated and mutually influential. The test is not only for the teaching service also affects the teaching content and the teaching method, will have the certain anti-allocation function to the teaching. The backwash effect of a language test may be positive or negative. Testing can find problems in teaching, so that teachers understand the process of learning, of course, students also have a role in urging. However, tests can also have side effects.

Testing may affect all aspects of teaching. Hughes divides these potentially affected aspects into 3 categories from a macro perspective: involving objects, processes, and results. The main objects involved are teachers, students, teaching managers, teaching materials writers and publishers. Hughes argues that these people's attitudes and perceptions about their work may be affected by the tests. Process refers to the various behavioral measures taken by the object in favor of teaching. The result is what you learn and the quality of your studies.

In the past more than 10 years, there have been a lot of empirical studies on the role of anti-allocation, which have provided us with different methods for empirical study on the role of Backwash.

2 METS (Nursing Class) analysis of reliability and validity of first-level examinations
　　
2.1 Objects and methods

This study selected 60 students from 2011 secondary nursing majors in our hospital as the research object. After the reform of the 2010, METS (nursing) scores only "pass" and "fail" two cases, and no score display, so the students can not be a real test scores statistical analysis. In order to reflect the students in the real test environment, we use the December 2011 METS (Nursing) First-class examination of the real problem, the 60 students who have enrolled in the examination before the test conducted a mock real test, and the test results with SPSS software for statistical analysis.

2.2 Test Paper analysis

Through the student performance distribution histogram and the frequency distribution table can be seen, the student's achievement close to the normal distribution, the average is divided into 62.32, the standard deviation is 12.39, the 33%,60~80 accounted for 60%, the peak appears in the 62~64 cent (see Figure 1).

The overall difficulty index of the test paper is 0.623, difficult to moderate (reference value 0.4≤p≤0.7), the hearing problem is easier to p=0.717 (reference value p≥0.7), relatively difficult is the writing problem, the difficulty coefficient is 0.48 (reference value p≤0.4).

It can be seen from the analysis results that the reliability coefficient of the test paper is 0.80. When the coefficient is 1.00, the reliability of the test is highest and the reliability of the test is minimized when the coefficient is 0.00. In general, the coefficients will not be 1.00, nor 0.00, but between the two. Generally, the reliability coefficient of standardized test is more than 0.90, for example, the reliability coefficient of TOEFL test is about 0.95, while the reliability coefficient of classroom test is 0.70~0.80 advisable.

According to the analysis, the correlation coefficient between total score and normal result is 0.853, which indicates that the test is correlated with the usual achievement, that is, the examination reflects the students ' true level and conforms to the validity requirement.

The average test is divided into 62.32, the standard deviation of 12.39, the results are basically in line with the normal distribution, the reliability coefficient is 0.80, the reliability is high; the overall difficulty index of the test paper is 0.623, which is normal difficulty, and the validity factor is 0.853, which indicates that the test result can reflect the students ' true level.

Judging the positive backwash effect mainly depends on the quality of the test paper. If the test paper quality is good, then it will have a positive impact on teaching, if the test paper quality is poor, then it will have a negative impact on teaching. Therefore, to ensure that the test has more positive backwash effect on teaching, examination paper quality plays an important role.

3 The Backwash effect of METS examination on teaching

According to Hughes's "three-part approach" to the study of backwash effects (involving objects, processes and results), the study focuses on the study of objects and processes involved, i.e. the impact of testing on student learning and teacher teaching.

We collect relevant information through questionnaires and interviews in the study of subjects involved (students). The study of the process mainly adopts the method of classroom observation and after-class interview, combined with effective teaching and CBI teaching idea, discusses the influence of METS exam on nursing English teaching reform.

The 3.1 Effect of METS examination on students ' learning

The questionnaire was distributed to 2011 secondary nursing students in our hospital, and 109 of the effective questionnaires were recovered. Through the analysis of the questionnaire data we found that after a semester of study, the interest in nursing English is greater than public English or the two students are interested in the same 65 people (59.6%), most students (65.1%) think nursing English is more useful or useful. But the students outside the time spent in nursing English study is very limited, 61.5% of the students to learn nursing English less than 0.5 hours, 24.8% of the students to learn nursing English time in 0.5~1 hours, even to participate in the METS exam students also admit that their extracurricular review time will not increase significantly. Many students (47.7%) tend to spend half of their time in class, while teachers and students practise, although we have been reformed in teaching, and students (51.4%) think that teachers speak more time in class. It is considered that "the teachers in the classroom METS intensive training effect generally" students accounted for 96.3%. The basic understanding of the METS exam students accounted for 82.6%, that "METS test to their own learning English as a driving force" accounted for 86.2%, that METS examination of their own learning to improve the role of nursing English accounted for 89%, that METS exam on their own learning nursing English positive impact of more than the negative impact of 7 1.6%.

METS exams do affect students ' learning attitude and learning methods to a certain extent, but different from other examinations, METS exams do not play a very strong guiding role to students ' behavior, many students just take a try attitude. However, the METS exam has made students clear about the goal of learning nursing English. Although the students know that there is no learning goal is difficult to actively study, teachers know that the goal of the establishment of the teaching is very important, but the previous learning goals are basically aimed at the school examination, students can not understand the authority of the Professional English evaluation standards, to a large extent, affecting the students to learn nursing English enthusiasm. METS Test fully embodies the special purpose English test features: highlighting the professional characteristics (targeted), highlighting the application of capacity (practicality), to examine the language communicative ability, in order to promote the ability of students to improve the actual exchange of medical English as the principle. Therefore, the author believes that the positive impact of the test on the objects involved is greater than the negative impact.

3.2 of METS examination to teachers ' teaching

The examination has certainly promoted the study to promote the teaching function, mainly manifests in two aspects: first, compels the teacher and student to increase the input, second, promotes the teaching content reform.

METS exam is not only a challenge to students, but also a challenge to English teachers. The METS examination pays attention to the real clinical nursing and the medicine related work scene English application ability, this causes the teacher to feel the pressure is big, needs diligently to compensate own specialized knowledge the insufficiency, becomes "the double teacher" the teacher. In addition, teachers should explore more suitable teaching methods in teaching.

METS examination has promoted the reform of nursing English teaching in our school, and the teaching content of the reform covers the basic contents of METS Examination: Vital Signs measurement, wound care, specimen sampling, administration, instrument operation, preoperative nursing, rehabilitation treatment, medical record filling and other nursing industry core daily work contents. From the past, only focus on medical English vocabulary and text to explain the transition to the above content of listening, speaking, reading and writing training.

Teachers in our school constantly explore the application of content-based teaching mode in nursing English teaching. The teaching idea of content-based teaching mode is to carry out language teaching on the basis of a certain subject or subject teaching, focusing on the acquisition of language through learning the subject knowledge. The content-based learning based on various topics of nursing, with English as the medium of learning, can effectively integrate language learning into the study of subject content. The experiment proves that this kind of teaching mode can arouse students ' learning enthusiasm, construct a new mode of operation between teachers and students ' cooperation, peer mutual assistance, interactive feedback, and greatly exert students ' learning ability.

The influence of language testing on teaching is widespread, which has positive and negative effects. People talk about the negative effect of the language test, such as the test is the "baton" of teaching, the teaching revolves around the examination, ignoring the cultivation of the students ' ability to use the language, the students learn for the examination, Gaofendineng and so on.

4 Conclusion

First of all, for teachers, scientific testing can promote teachers ' teaching. Teachers can make full use of the feedback information of the test, understand the students ' learning situation, find their own shortcomings, in order to adjust the teaching strategy and teaching content, and promote teachers to improve their business level and ability. Second, for students, scientific and impartial testing can be an objective and accurate evaluation of students ' language ability. Students can know their mastery of the content of learning, find gaps, sum up lessons learned in the future learning process targeted.

However, teachers can not take the test as a "baton", so that teaching content deviation from the syllabus and affect the normal teaching activities. The test results have a great influence on students ' learning motivation and attitude, but they should pay more attention to the cultivation of language application ability. In a word, the positive and negative effects of language testing on language teaching coexist, the key is how to reduce the negative effect, maximize the positive role, so that it better serve the teaching activities, so that the test has a good guiding role in teaching.

Analysis of the validity of METS (nursing Class) first-level examination and its effect on teaching