AN INVESTIGATION OF CONSTRUCTS OF SECOND LANGUAGE LISTENING TESTS Buchkatalog

This study investigated the operationalized constructs of second language listening measured by a standardized English proficiency test. The theoretical analysis defined the listening abilities that constituted the operationalized constructs. The empirical analyses validated the effectiveness of the listening abilities and tested a hypothesis about the operationalized listening construct. The listening abilities were analyzed based on three aspects: language knowledge unique to listening, cognitive and comprehension processes implicated by items tasks, and stimulus features. The hypothesis of this study posited two factors of operationalized listening constructs: one was related to language knowledge and the other to cognitive comprehension factors. The exploratory factor analysis extracted two factors confirming that the proposed listening abilities were effective means of finding underlying factors of listening constructs. The confirmatory factor analysis successfully verified a model that substantiated the hypothesis. The model displayed moderate proportions of variances accounted for by the two factors and covariance of certain measurement errors.