Few investigators have sought to determine, rather than merely to assume, the importance of context dependence. It is contended that those who have empirically studied the issue have not addressed the most appropriate research question. The rationale of a research design for estimating the importance of context dependence is presented. Two pilot studies are provided to illustrate the method of investigating the importance of context dependence and of comparing aspects of utility and validity of competing passage dependence indices.In recent years a body of literature has accumulated concerning passage dependence in reading comprehension and the more general case of context dependence (CD) in any kind of interpretive exercise type test. Writers have offered alternative methods of operationalizing CD Although questions regarding the importance of CD are amenable to empirical research, few investigators have sought to determine, rather than to assume, its importance. This article concerns the practical importance of CD. The purposes were to (1) propose a research design for estimating for a given population the extent to which items with high CD measure a construct that is independent from that measured by items with low CD, (2) show how this design can be used empirically to compare the utility of alternate CD indices, and (3) provide findings of two explorative, demonstrative studies.
RATIONALEPrevious studies of the importance of CD have secured scores for examinees administered a set of questions without the context upon which they are based and at University of Manitoba Libraries on June 9, 2015 jlr.sagepub.com Downloaded from