An analysis of levels of questions toward language testing using Barrett’s Taxonomy

ABSTRACT

During this time, a question is mostly understood by the society as a means for asking questions. It influences to our understanding about the aims of questions. In daily life, we often find many questions types such as in communication, newspaper, books, magazines, television, and particularly in a test. It make us do not know what the function of the questions asked, why the questions are asked, and what the aspects that wants to be measured in the questions. It also happens in questions presented in reading test on IELTS Module that provides 40 questions that are interested for the researcher to analyze the levels of those questions.

Related to those phenomena, the research problems are “what are the forms of questions presented in reading test on IELTS module?”, “what are the levels of questions presented in reading test on IELTS Module?”, and “what are the functions of the levels of questions presented in reading test on IELTS Module?”

This research uses descriptive qualitative design. The data of the study are all of the questions presented in reading test 1 on IELTS Module published by Adam and Austen Press in 2004. It provides 40 questions that are divided into three reading passages. The data, then, are analyzed by several procedures that include identification, classification, and description of the functions.

The finding of the research reveals that the questions that presented in reading test 1 on IELTS Module are divided into two levels of questions; those are literal and inferential comprehension. The function of them, generally, is to know the reader’s proficiency based on objective aspects. In addition, this research also reveals four forms of questions used; those are matching, true­false, multiple­ choice, and cloze question.

After conducting the research, the researcher gives some suggestions for the English learners to increase their understanding on the levels questions, especially to be able to use it in doing the test. Moreover, it is suggested for the lecturers to teach their students with sufficient explanation of respective toward the levels of questions. In addition, it is also suggested for the test developers to use the levels of questions as major reference in making questions. Besides, for the next researchers who are interested in conducting the same research to analyze evaluation and appreciation level that are not found in this research. Furthermore, the result of the research will be able to enrich the knowledge toward the levels of questions based on Barrett’ taxonomy.