Volume 7-3 June 2011.

PDF E-book version

Title
Testing EFL Learners’ Knowledge of English Collocations: An Exploratory Factor Analysis Approach

Authors
Mahmood Salimi (Ph.D. Candidate)
University of Isfahan, English Department, Isfahan, Iran

Mansoor Tavakoli (Ph.D.)
University of Isfahan, English Department, Isfahan, Iran

Saeed Ketabi (Ph.D.)
University of Isfahan, English Department, Isfahan, Iran

Bio data
Mahmood Salimi is a Ph.D. candidate for Applied Linguistics at Isfahan University, Isfahan, Iran. He is also an EFL/ESL teacher at Mofid University, Qom, Iran. His main areas of interest are language testing, e-learning and oral interpretation.

Mansoor Tavakoli is assistant professor at the University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran. He has published many articles in various journals in the area of English language teaching and learning. His main areas of interest are language testing and research in applied linguistics.

Saeed Ketabi is assistant professor of applied linguistics at the University of Isfahan, Isfahan, Iran. He has published numerous articles in the area of English language teaching and learning. His main areas of interest are English Teaching Methodology and Materials development.

Abstract
The purpose of this study was to develop a Test of Collocational Competence (TCC) for measuring the Iranian EFL learners’ knowledge of English collocations and to investigate its construct validity. Following a systematic procedure the test was developed. For the purpose of this study, 345 Iranian EFL learners served as the participants. The test results were obtained and using various statistical techniques, the questions of the study were investigated.The results of the statistical analyses showed that the final version of the TCC enjoyed well-discriminating items and a high Cronbach alpha coefficient of .88 indicating good internal consistency. Performing PCA, the factor structure of the TCC was explored and results of PCA also revealed that knowledge of collocation was a trait different from what the general proficiency tests usually aim at measuring. This provided evidence in support of the construct validity of the TCC. The obtained results were discussed and the implications for practioners and teachers in an EFL context were presented.

Keywords: Collocations, Lexical collocation, Grammatical collocation, Collocational competence, Construct validity, PCA.