An Investigation of the English Listening Items on the Teacher Employment Examination

Abstract

This paper examines the effectiveness of English Teacher Employment Examination (TEE) listening section items by analyzing potential examinees’mock test scores on the 2009 and 2010 TEEs and their answers to survey questions related to each item. In addition, the relationship between the mock test results and the type or content of the test items is examined. To analyze and interpret the data,descriptive statistics (including means and standard deviations, ANOVA, and PTMEA [point-measure] correlation) are calculated. The findings of this study not only show the common features and differences between the 2009 and 2010 TEEs but also suggest implications to improve the items in terms of five points: itemexposure,point distribution, item discrimination, excessive number of choices, and factors influencing level of difficulty.