C-test vs. Multiple-choice Cloze Test as Tests of Reading Comprehension in Iranian EFL Context: Learners' Perspective

Abstract

Cloze tests have been widely used for measuring reading comprehension since their introducing to the testing world by Taylor in 1953. But in 1982, Klein-Braley criticized cloze procedure mostly for their deletion and scoring problems. They introduced their newly developed testing procedure, C-test, which was an evolved form of cloze tests without their deficiencies (Klein-Braley, 1982 cited in Baghaei, 2008. After that, the effectiveness of C-test and cloze test became the main interest of the scientists in the field of language testing. The present study aims to compare the results of multiple-choice cloze test with those of C-test as measures of reading comprehension. To this end, one traditional C-test and one fixed ratio (n=7) multiple-choice cloze test were prepared from reading passages with similar readability level. The subjects of the study were 27 female EFL advanced learners. The results of the study revealed that multiple-choice cloze is a better measure of reading comprehension. Through a retrospective study which was done at the end of the tests, the students' impressions and opinions about tests and their own performance were recorded and taken into consideration. The implications of the findings and suggestions for more studies are discussed within a foreign language testing context.

Adult L2 Learners Need a Reading Comprehension Test: Is it a C-Test or a Cloze Test?

“…These findings are the contrary to several studies such as Bachman (1985), Greene (2001), Jonz and Oller (1994), and Sasaki (2000) concluding that cloze test is a valid reading comprehension test. Moreover, these findings are the opposite of the results that were found by Ajideh and Mozaffarzadeh (2012) indicating that cloze test as a reading comprehension test is more efficient test than C-test as a reading comprehension test. In other words, the answer of the first question of the study was in favour of the C-test.…”

“…Wilson Taylor initiated 'cloze procedure' expression in 1953 (Brown, 2002), this expression appears as a corrupted spelling form of "close" (Ajideh & Mozaffarzadeh, 2012). As Oller (1979) indicated that this expression was originated from the gestalt psychology concept of 'closure', which means a skill to fill in the gaps in an interrupted or mutilated message (Culhane, 1970;Heaton, 1975;McMamey, 2006).…”

“…The alternative test is the C-test that includes several short texts as five to six texts in which the rule of deleting words is called the rule of two ( Ajideh & Mozaffarzadeh, 2012). This deleting method involves mutilating the second half of every second word starting from the second sentence in the text until the sentence before the last according to Klein-Braley and Raatz (1984) and Raatz and Klein-Braley (1985).…”

The Acquisition of English Verb Tense and Aspect of L2 Learners

“…In the cloze procedure, gaps or blanks were formed by removing specific words from a text. The test-taker must then complete these gaps by selecting suitable words based on context clues provided within the passage (Ajideh, et al, 2012). In the present study, the cloze test, a fill-in-the-blank type of test is an instrument that required the L2 learners to fill in the sentences and passages with the correct form of the verb tense and aspect to complete the meaning of the passages.…”