The Creation of the Basic Thai Language Proficiency Test for Chinese Students of Bansomdejchaopraya Rajabhat University

Abstract

The objective of this research was to create the Basic Thai language proficiency test for Chinese students at Bansomdejchaopraya Rajabhat University. The test included 80 multiple-choice items, which aimed to measure the knowledge of basic Thai language, basic Thai orthography, basic Thai vocabulary, and basic Thai conversations in daily life. The researcher used the criteria to check the quality of the test as follows: 1) indexes of item-objective congruence (IOC) ≥ 0.50 2) item difficulty (p) = 0.20 – 0.80 3) discrimination (r) = 0.20, and 4) Kuder-Richardson 20 (KR20) ≥ 0.70. The results showed that the test had content validity as IOC was 0.97. The basic statistics of the test scores were at a moderate or relatively easy level. The maximum score (MAX) was 78 while the minimum score (MIN) was 31. The average test score (x̅) was 59.70, and the standard deviation (S.D.) was 13.01. Based on the quality analysis of individual test items, it was found that item difficulty (p) was 0.16 – 0.98, and discrimination (r) was 0.03 – 0.75. Based on the criteria, there were 74 items which had the quality, and Kuder-Richardson 20 (KR20) was 0.828, 0.810, and 0.825, respectively. It can be concluded that this test is suitable for Chinese students at Bansomdejchaopraya Rajabhat University.