TY  - UNPB
UR  - http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.535082
TI  - Korean university students attitudes to and performance on a face-to-face interview (FTFI) and a computer administered oral test (CAOT)
ID  - discovery10020563
N1  - Thesis: (EdD) University of London Institute of Education, 2008.
EP  - 246
AV  - restricted
N2  - This study intensely investigated Korean university students' attitudes to a Face-to-Face
Interview (FTFI) and a Computer Administered Oral Test (CAOT) first and then their
performance on the tests, and finally their effects on performance on the two tests in a
Korean university context.
The 42 university students participating in the study took part in both the FTFI and
the CAOT. After these tests, they completed a questionnaire about their attitudes
towards and their perceptions of the tests. Ten of them were interviewed after the
questionnaire to understand more deeply their attitudes and performance. Their
performance on the two tests was examined using Multi-Faceted Rasch Analysis.
The results of this study indicated that Korean university students showed much more
favorable attitudes to the CAOT compared with previous studies on direct and semidirect
tests, but they still preferred the FTFI to the CAOT in spite of significant negative
attitudes to the FTFI with respect to aspects such as nervousness, preparation time, and
tiredness.
In terms of performance, Korean university students generally had low speaking
abilities, but their speaking ability could still be discriminated well by the Rasch model.
Their performance was assumed to be affected by many other intervening factors, but the findings suggested that their performance was not influenced by factors such as test
order, bias between raters and test formats, computer familiarity, gender or age
differences; however, there was an effect for the severity between raters. The students
preferred the FTFI overall, but the study also showed that the FTFI was more difficult
than the CAOT, indicating a test format effect on performance.
Finally, the results of the analyses using the ability estimates and compensating for
rater severity indicate that the students' attitudes about the FTFI were associated with
their performance on the FTFI, while there was no relationship between their attitudes
to the CAOT and performance on the CAOT. The students performed better on the FTFI
when they had more positive and less negative attitudes toward the FTFI. That is, this
study indicates that Korean university students' attitudes to the FTFI could be important
sources of construct irrelevant variance on their speaking test performance on the FTFI.
Based on all the findings of this study, I conclude that the use of the CAOT should be
considered by teachers and administrators in Korea. The CAOT may be useful for the
assessment of achievement during or at the end of the course, or as an alternative test
method, in the situation where it is needed to test students' overall oral ability, but hard
to conduct the FTFI, especially due to its impracticality (e.g., the lack of skillful
teachers and a large number of students).
A1  - Joo, Mi-jin
PB  - Institute of Education, University of London
Y1  - 2008///
M1  - Doctoral
ER  -