An analysis on the construction of the 1989-1990 English UUB for the first grade senior high school in region I north Surabaya

This study has attempted to answer the following two major research questions: "1) Are the English UUB test items of the first grade senior high school in Region ·I North Surabaya valid?; 2) Are the English UUB test items well-formulated?". The first major research question was divided into the following 4 minor research questions: 1) Are the structure test items constructed according to the syllabus?; 2) Are the vocabulary test items constructed according to the syllabus?; 3) Are the reading comprehension test items constructed according to the syllabus?; 4) Are the conversation test items constructed according to the syllabus? The second major research question, on the other hand, was divided into the following minor questions: 1) Do the objective test items meet the principles of constructing multiple-choice items?; 2) Do the subjective test items meet the principles of constructing essay items? To get the answers to the first major research question, the English UUB test items of the first grade senior high school in Region I North Surabaya, were analyzed under the light of the syllabus through a table of specifications. On the other hand, to get the answers to the second major research question, the test items under study were analyzed under the light of the principles of multiplechoice test item construction and the essay test item construction. Under the analysis procedures presented in chapter III and the parameters of objectives as well as subjective test item construction, the study under report found that: (1) the structure test items had representative learning outcomes but did not have representative content coverage and samplings. (2) the vocabulary test items did not cover representative language content and learning outcomes and its samplings were also inadequate. (3) the reading comprehension test items only covered simple learning outcomes. (4) the conversation test items did not have representative learning outcomes,language contents and samplings (5) Most of the item construction did not meet the principles of constructing multiple-choice items, especially the Conv~r.sdtion /5pt'ak.it'9 test items. (6) the subjective reading comprehension item construction had clear instruction but it only measured the simple learning outcomes. Based on these findings, the following conclusions vi are drawn: (1) the 1989-1990 English UUB test had a low degree of content validity. (2) of the five subtests, the conversation section was the the least acceptable, followed by the reading comprehension objective test,structure test, vocabulary test,reading comprehension subjective test successively. Finally as a follow up, it is suggested that, in order to improve the quality of the English UUB here, (1) the test authorities construct more items so that the test may have greater content validity. (2) the test authorities hold workshops on language testing to give a chance to the English teachers to pursue furthur study in language testing. (3) the authorities activate the PKG (pemantapan Kerja Guru) club by holding frequent meetings and stimulate the teachers to construct good language items. vi