introduction

The evaluation of core competencies in the English subject was discussed, emphasizing the importance of situational assessment in simulating real language usage environments. Situational assessment helps learners demonstrate their practical language skills, promote the integration of knowledge and practice, and cultivate critical thinking and innovation abilities. At the same time, by creating real-life problem scenarios, it can increase candidates' exam engagement and learning interest. This article will explore the principles, methods, and evaluation framework of situational test design, and analyze the high school English test questions to provide reference for peers.

The connotation of situational assessment

Situational assessment is based on the theory of contextualized learning, closely related to constructivism, emphasizing that learning is contextualized and that knowledge internalization needs to be achieved in a real or similar real environment. Scenarios can be divided into broad socio-cultural contexts and narrow evaluative task contexts. Situational assessment utilizes real-life scenarios to design test questions, requiring candidates to analyze situational information, use language knowledge to solve problems, and demonstrate core competencies. It solves the problem of core literacy assessment at the micro level, reflects the concept of ability at the macro level, promotes the shift of teaching and learning focus towards core literacy cultivation, and cultivates well-rounded talents.

Principles and Methods of Situational Test Design

In depth exploration of the application of contextualized test design in high school English, clarifying the three elements that contextualized test design should include: contextualized text materials, tasks, and abilities. At the same time, four principles of situational assessment were proposed: authenticity, relevance, diversity, and appropriateness, which are important criteria for judging situational validity. In addition, the key points for situational assessment of test questions proposed by the Curriculum and Textbook Research Institute of the Ministry of Education were introduced, including diversity, authenticity, appropriateness, and fairness, which are similar to the principles in academic literature and provide guidance for situational test question design. During the process of developing test questions, examiners need to follow these principles to ensure that the contextualized field of the questions can effectively measure the language ability of candidates and provide valuable information for teaching and core competency assessment.

Evaluation framework for situational test questions

Introduced the "3 × 4" situational test evaluation framework for analyzing the design of high school English test questions. The framework evaluates the situational diversity, authenticity, appropriateness, and fairness of test questions from three dimensions: materials, task requirements, and assessment abilities. Specifically, it includes the diversity of material contexts, situational tasks, and situational abilities, covering literacy such as language proficiency, cultural awareness, thinking quality, and learning ability.

Situational Test Design for Middle School English

The 2023 National High School Entrance Examination English Proposition Evaluation shows that the proposition units have performed well in creating test scenarios, selecting diverse and abundant materials, effectively using multimodal discourse, and ensuring the authenticity and communicative nature of discourse contexts. The design of test tasks follows the principles of openness and comprehensiveness, comprehensively testing the language application ability of candidates. Specific analysis includes:

conclusion

This paper explores the application of situational assessment in the middle school entrance examination English proposition, proposes design principles and methods, and emphasizes that proposition personnel need to consider material selection, target ability positioning, and task presentation to ensure the diversity, authenticity, appropriateness, and fairness of the test situation. By analyzing the English test questions of the middle school entrance examination, the current application status of situational assessment is demonstrated, providing inspiration for proposition. It is recommended that examiners pay attention to the multidimensional elements of test scenario design, introduce candidates' life experience, and improve the discrimination of test questions. Situational assessment combined with real-life situations comprehensively evaluates the core competencies of candidates, which is of great significance for innovating educational evaluation methods. Looking forward to more English educators participating in exploration and practice.