Exploring the factors of the English Comprehension Test

Abstract

The empirically designed English Comprehension Test was initially developed as a means of assessing individual’s English comprehension skills. The test development of the English Comprehension Test led to the piloting of two test versions of the English Comprehension Test, namely, version 1.2 and version 1.3. The purpose of this study was to statistically explore the factors emerging from the two test versions of the English Comprehension Test. This study is the initial step towards establishing the construct validity, which forms part of the validation of the English Comprehension Test. This quantitative study involved an exploratory inspection of the factors of the English Comprehension Test, with the use of factor analyses. It also employed two factor extraction methods (Principal Component Analysis and Principal Axis Factoring) for comparison. These two factor extraction methods used for the exploratory factor analyses revealed a dominant factor for both test versions of the English Comprehension Test, thereby endorsing an argument for unidimensionality of the English Comprehension Test. The similarities between the results for the two test versions confirmed the existence of an inherent structure for the English Comprehension Test, despite the differences between the two test versions. The labelling of the factors of the test also suggests that the English Comprehension Test could be an assessment of cognitive (verbal) aptitude. A major limitation of this study is the restriction of range and lack of generalizability. The contribution made by this study will enhance psychometric validation studies in South Africa as well as increasing literature on South African test construction for multicultural and multilingual individuals.