Performance on Cloze Tests with Fixed-Ratio and Rational Deletions

Abstract

Although research on the cloze test has offered differing evidence regarding what language abilities it measures, there is a general consensus among researchers that not all the deletions in a given cloze passage measure exactly the same abilities. An important issue for test developers, therefore, is the extent to which it is possible to design cloze tests that measure specific abilities. Two cloze tests were prepared from the same text. In one, different types of deletions were made according to the range of context required for closure, while in the other a fixed-ratio deletion procedure was followed. These tests were administered to 910 university and pre-university students, including both native and non-native speakers of English, with approximately half assigned at random to take the fixed-ratio test and the other half taking the rationally deleted test. While both tests were equally reliable and had equal criterion validity, the fixed-ratio test was significantly more difficult. Analyses of responses to different types of deletions suggest that the difficulty of cloze items is a function of the range of syntactic and discourse context required for closure. The study also provides practical and empirically supported criteria for making rational deletions and suggests that cloze tests can be designed to measure a range of abilities.Recent research on the cloze test has focused on the question of construct validity; more specifically, it has examined the extent to which cloze deletions are capable of measuring language abilities beyond the knowledge of sentence-level grammatical structure. While there are considerable differences among the studies which have examined this question, there appears to be some consensus among researchers that not all deletions in a given cloze passage measure exactly the same abilities. If this is so, then an important issue for test developers is the extent to which it is possible to control,

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.…”

On the Relationship between Problem-solving Trait and the Performance on C-test

“…As it is stated by Mousavi (1999, p. 78), in C-test, -the second half of every second word is deleted, leaving first and the last sentence of the passage intact.‖ The term cloze comes from the Gestalt psychology in which it is believed that individuals are able to fill in the gaps in incomplete patterns (Bachman, 1985;Taylor, 1956). Therefore, C-test requires learners to establish a relationship between linguistic elements and contextual cues.…”

Mise sur pied d’une mesure de la compréhension de textes en langue seconde

“…Une autre technique pour évaluer la compréhension de textes réside dans le test de closure (Taylor, 1953 (De Landsheere, 1978;Greene, 2001;Jonz, 1987;McKamey, 2006), d'aucuns l'utilisent plutôt en guise de mesure de la compétence dans la langue lue (Brown, 1988;Chapelle et Abraham, 1990;Oller, 1973;Oller et Conrad, 1971;voir Watanabe et Koyama, 2008 Les tests de closure restent toutefois controversés comme outil de mesure de compétence dû au fait que la performance varie pour une même personne selon le texte choisi et le nombre de lacunes insérées (Douglas et Selinker, 1985), et selon la nature et la fonction des mots supprimés (Bachman, 1985;Rankin et Thomas, 1980). Leur fiabilité varierait aussi selon le niveau de compétence des personnes testées (Alderson, 1979;Heilenman, 1983).…”