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sixth semester students of the English Language Education Study Program of Sanata Dharma University on analysing the adjective clauses using the X schema.
Hughes 1989: 26 and Brown 2001: 389 underlie those arguments. Furthermore, Bachman and Palmer 1996: 21 explain that the term construct
validity is therefore used to refer to the extent to which we can interpret a given test score as an indicator of the abilities or construct. The score of the test would
show the students’ performance on the related subject of the test.
3 Face Validity
According to Mousavi 2002: 244 as quoted by Brown 2004: 26-27, face validity refers to the degree to which a test looks right and appears to
measure, based on the subjective judgment of the examinees who take it, the administrative personnel who decide on its use, and other psychometrically
unsophisticated observers. Brown adds that face validity is not something that can be empirically tested by a teacher or even by a testing expert. Therefore, to elicit
the face validity the writer had asked the supervisor and the lecturer who teach Morpho-Syntax to give feedback before the test was administrated. According to
their opinion, the test had met the requirements to be used in the research.
b. Test Reliability
Reliability is necessary for a good test. Ary et al. 2002: 268 state that reliability is the consistency of the measuring instrument with which it measures
whatever it is intended to measure. In addition, Best 1986: 153 says that a test is PLAGIAT MERUPAKAN TINDAKAN TIDAK TERPUJI
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reliable if it measures accurately and consistently, from one time to another. Therefore, if a test is administered to the same students on different time and the
students’ scores are stable, it can be said that the test is reliable, but if not, the test is unreliable. In addition, Hughes 1989: 36-42 states that there are some criteria
that should be met to make a test reliable. They are related to the sample, items writing, construction and scoring. Beside all of those factors, test reliability can be
determined by the calculation of the standard deviation. The writer chose Coefficient Alpha as the way to test the reliability of the
test. The Coefficient Alpha or Cronbach Alpha was used because it has wider application than other methods and it was suggested for language teacher because
of its practicallity. The formula is the followings Brown, 2005: 179:
where
α
: reliability of the test S
odd
: standard deviation for the odd-numbered items S
even
: standard deviation for the even-numbered items S
total
: standard deviation for the total test scores The result showed that the reliability of the first part of the test was 0.57 and the
reliability of the second part of the test was 0.86. According to Young 1982: 317 as quoted by Djarwanto and Subagyo 1996: 343, those two coefficients were
included in the substantial and high category. In addition, the writer enclosed the complete computation of the test reliability in the Appendix B. It consisted the
raw scores of the test as well as the distribution of the students’ answer and scores in each part of the test.
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c. Test Practicality
Another point that should be considered in making a test is test practicality Brown, 2004: 19-20. Brown states that a test is practical when it is not
excessively expensive and relatively easy to administer. He also adds that the test should stay within appropriate time constrains and has a scoring or evaluation
procedure that is specific and time efficient. Therefore, as an example, a grammar test which requires hundreds of students to have dozens paraphrasing test with
only one administrator is certainly impractical. The test in this research met the practicality because it was easy to administer and appropriate within the time
constrain. The test also was not excessively expensive because the samples were still reasonable in number. Moreover, the test also had reliable scoring system.
The test consisted of objective and subjective parts and the scoring system Appendix A provided guidelines to provide reliable scoring.
D. Data Gathering Technique