What Is the Optimum Length of a Cloze Test?

Abstract

Following Nation' (2009) proposal of 40-50 empty spaces as an optimum length of a cloze test, this study examined whether this length would work according to proficiency level. Three cloze tests, adjusted for each proficiency level, were developed by the researcher for the use at beginning, intermediate and advanced levels. The cloze tests measured participants' reading comprehension and included 40, 45 and 50 empty spaces for the beginning, intermediate and advanced levels respectively. Problematic items of each cloze test were identified over several pilot studies. Then they were administered to three groups of L1 Persian EFL learners at the beginning (56), intermediate (43), and advanced (41) levels. Results of the study suggest that an optimum length of a cloze test could vary according to the proficiency level. While the test could be long (including 50 empty spaces) and reliable at the advanced level, a shorter length of the test including 20-25 empty spaces could be more reliable at the beginning and intermediate levels.Keywords: cloze test, reading comprehension, proficiency, reliability, EFL learners Brown (1998) argues that at least three factors influence the reliability of cloze tests. These factors include variations in students' proficiency levels, differences in readability of the cloze tests, and length of the test (changes in number of items). Research suggests that if the first two factors are held constant, longer cloze tests yield more reliable estimates than shorter ones (e.g., Bachman, 1990;Brown, 1996Brown, , 1998. However, these researchers have not clearly determined the optimum length of a cloze test. Rand (1978) examined the effect of test length on the reliability of cloze tests. He suggested that a cloze test should include 20-25 empty spaces irrespective of the method used to score that. However, he had drawn on a single cloze test and single population in his study. Then variations in his participants' language proficiency and potential differences in readability of cloze tests were simply ignored in his study. Nation (2009) believes that one of the factors that make a cloze test reach a good level of reliability is that the cloze has a high number of points of measurement. He proposes that a cloze test with 40-50 empty spaces would be more reliable. However, it has not been argued whether the proposed length would work across different proficiency levels. Brown (1998) believes that there is a threshold at which increasing length of the test can have opposite effect. He has proposed a procedure through which one can determine the appropriate length of a cloze test. However, it would be very time-consuming for EFL/ESL teachers to determine the optimum length of a cloze test for each group of their participants. This is because the participants may differ in terms of language proficiency. To tackle this problem, it appears that a framework for an optimum length of a cloze test at each proficiency level is required. To meet this requirement, this study was designed to examine ...

Avaliação e desenvolvimento da compreensão de leitura em universitários

“…Uma das possibilidades adotadas para avaliar a compreensão de leitura é a técnica de Cloze, que tem sido objeto de atenção de estudiosos desde sua proposição por Taylor (1953) até os anos recentes, em que estudos mostram sua adequação como medida rápida e confiável da compreensão de leitura (Bellon-Harn, Credeur-Pampolina, & LeBoeuf, 2013;Briere, Clausing, Senko, & Purcell, 1978;Gellert & Elbro, 2012;Kroeger, Burton, & Preston 2009;Shahnazari-Dorcheh, Roshan, & Hesabi, 2012). No Brasil, o Cloze tem sido bastante usado para o diagnóstico do nível de compreensão de leitura em universitários, visto que consiste na eliminação de alguns vocábulos do texto, que são substituídos por traços.…”

Evaluación de la comprensión del texto científico-académico en el posgrado mediante el procedimiento cloze

“…En síntesis, el análisis efectuado parece apoyar el postulado de varios autores (Abraham & Chapelle, 1992;Brown, 2013;Gellert & Elbro, 2013;Shahnazari-Dorcheh et al, 2012;Trace, 2020, entre otros) sobre la validez del cloze (en dependencia de su método de construcción y calificación) para evaluar comprensión global, dado que la puntuación que obtiene el lector puede ser entendida como un indicador de su competencia para emplear las claves textuales. En este sentido, en la presente investigación la dificultad de los blancos referidos a lenguaje especializado varía de modo consistente según la brecha entre los ítems (Trace, 2020) -cantidad de contexto requerido para completarlos-, la que exige que se establezca la conexión entre proposiciones separadas en el texto (Abraham & Chapelle, 1992;Gellert & Elbro, 2013).…”

“…ej., Gellert & Elbro, 2013), los patrones de eliminación de términos (Kleijn, Pander-Maat, & Sanders, 2019), los métodos de calificación (Kleijn et al, 2019;O'Toole & King, 2010) y, en menor medida, la dificultad de los ítems (Trace, 2020;Trace, Brown, Janssen, & Kozhevnikova, 2017). La primera pregunta conforma un área de ininterrumpido debate, que enfrenta a quienes consideran que solo evalúa comprensión local (por ejemplo, Carlisle & Rice, 2004, en Trace et al, 2017 con aquellos que sostienen que puede ponderar la coherencia global, constituyéndose así en una medida válida y rápida de la competencia lectora (Gellert & Elbro, 2013;Kleijn et al, 2019;Shahnazari-Dorcheh, Roshan, & Hesabi, 2012;Trace, 2020).…”

Readability ease of online hearing-related information in Hindi

“…Lower scores indicate more difficulty in understanding the text. The rationale behind this test is that the respondent must be susceptible to semantic and syntactic restrictions in each context to fill in the blanks(Shahnazari-Dorcheh, Roshan, & Hesabi, 2012). The length of the cloze test studied byShahnazari-Dorcheh et al (2012) found that the length of the cloze test depends on the proficiency level.…”

“…The rationale behind this test is that the respondent must be susceptible to semantic and syntactic restrictions in each context to fill in the blanks(Shahnazari-Dorcheh, Roshan, & Hesabi, 2012). The length of the cloze test studied byShahnazari-Dorcheh et al (2012) found that the length of the cloze test depends on the proficiency level. The authors concluded that at the advanced proficiency level, a long test including 50 empty spaces is reliable and a short test including 20 to 25 spaces is more reliable at beginner and intermediate proficiency levels.…”