ERIC Number: EJ1409326
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2023
Pages: 18
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: EISSN-2667-6753
The Influence of Passage Cohesion on Cloze Test Item Difficulty
Language Teaching Research Quarterly, v37 p161-178 2023
The role of context in cloze tests has long been seen as both a benefit as well as a complication in their usefulness as a measure of second language comprehension (Brown, 2013). Passage cohesion, in particular, would seem to have a relevant and important effect on the degree to which cloze items function and the interpretability of performances (Brown, 1983; Dastjerdi & Talebinezhad, 2006; Oller & Jonz, 1994). With recent evidence showing that cloze items can require examinees to access information at both the sentence and passage level (Trace, 2020), it's worthwhile to now look back and examine the relationship between aspects of passage cohesion--referential cohesion, semantic overlap, and incidence of conjunctives--and item difficulty by classification. The current study draws upon a large pool of cloze test passages and items (k = 377) originally used by Brown (1993) along with automated text analysis of cohesion ("Coh-Metrix," McNamara et al., 2014) to examine the impact of passage cohesion on item function. Correlations, factor analysis, and linear regression point to clear though minimal differences for both sentential and intersentential items as they relate to aspects of passage cohesion, the results of which may inform future test design and interpretation of cloze performance.
Descriptors: Language Tests, Cloze Procedure, Connected Discourse, Test Items, Second Language Learning, Language Processing, Semantics, Form Classes (Languages), Difficulty Level, Classification, Test Format, Sentences, Test Construction, English (Second Language), Second Language Instruction, Cross Cultural Studies, Foreign Countries, Secondary School Students, Item Analysis
European Knowledge Development (EUROKD). e-mail: editorial@eurokd.com; Web site: https://www.eurokd.com/journal/jd/1
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Secondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: Russia; Japan
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A