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International audience; We present an algorithm for the automatic processing of cloze test results that are traditionally analyzed and adjusted by hand. The algorithm accurately includes inflected and derived forms of the target word as correct responses, as well as minor spelling mistakes and typographical errors. We provide a test of the algorithm against the coding of one expert human observer and find that the algorithm performs with equal accuracy. We further examine the utility of the algorithm for the analysis of data involving word identification with typed responses. The routines are implemented in R-software and are freely available.

This study examined the occurrence of items from the Academic Word List (AWL) (Coxhead, 2000) in reading, listening and cloze texts in 12 versions of an English proficiency test used for admission purposes at Canadian universities. The relationship between the coverage of AWL in the texts and the corresponding scores of 6380 test takers was also analyzed. The results indicated that AWL coverage in the passages was consistently present and substantial although below the established level of coverage found in academic texts. Furthermore, AWL coverage had no correlation with the overall reading and listening comprehension scores, and there was a small, negative correlation with cloze test scores. The findings are discussed in light of lexical specifications of language proficiency tests used for university entry purposes.

Competition is often incorporated into game-based learning. Accordingly, we developed an academic English competition cloze test (AECCG), in which there were two modes, i.e., real competition and virtual competition. On the other hand, the effectiveness of real competition and virtual competition is still uncertain. To this end, we conducted two empirical studies to address this issue. Study One examined the impacts of real competition while Study Two investigated students’ reactions to real competition and virtual competition. The results from Study One indicated that students made improvement between each task and between the post-test and the delayed test in the context of real competition. The results from Study Two showed that learners with virtual competition significantly had better learning performance and spent more time for undertaking the practical tasks than those with real competition. Furthermore, learners with real competition and those with virtual competition showed different learning behavior. Based on the results of these two studies, we proposed a framework, which can contribute the understandings of the impacts of real competition and virtual competition on game-based learning. Implications for educational practice are discussed.

The present study seeks to contribute to our knowledge of the effectiveness of reading in the incidental learning of collocations. The study also addresses the question whether out-of-class exposure such as watching TV, listening to radio or music, reading English books and using social media plays a significant role in the learning of collocations. The research participants were 46 Arabic-speaking young adult EFL learners. They were asked to read a modified text containing 10 pseudo-word collocations and to verify that all were unfamiliar to them. One week later, they read a text containing the actual 21 target collocations, which had been selected on the basis of appearing in instructional materials and a reference corpus, as well as of frequency. Participants were then asked to complete a meaning-recall cloze test in the form of a gap-filling task in which the 21 target collocations were embedded in sentences. Subsequently they were administered a self-report survey about any incidental exposure to English. The analysis of the quantitative results revealed that the target collocations can be learned incidentally through reading although the level of mastery was limited. The survey data showed a positive correlation between the learners’ knowledge of collocations and activities such as watching TV, listening to radio and reading English books. The study also confirmed that collocations are particularly difficult for adult EFL learners and is thus an aspect of vocabulary knowledge in need of further empirical investigations.

It uses eye-tracking to examine how study activities affect cognitive processing.It examines cognitive processing in highlighting and graphic organizer study aids.Graphic organizers improve memory and comprehension but highlighting only memory.Eye-movement analysis shows that highlighting primes selecting cognitive process.Graphic organizers, on the other hand, prime selecting, organizing and integrating. This study uses eye tracking technology to examine how study aids such as highlighting and graphic organizers affect cognitive processing during learning. Participants were 130 college students randomly assigned to one of five experimental conditions. In the control group, students read a plain text; in two behaviorally passive conditions, students read a text with key words colored in red or read the same text along with a filled-in graphic organizer; and in two behaviorally active conditions, students either highlighted key words in a text or filled in an empty graphic organizer. Students took tests of rote memory (cloze test) and comprehension (summary test). Asking students to fill in a graphic organizer or providing a filled-in graphic organizer resulted in improvements in performance on both tests, whereas asking students to highlight the text or providing highlighted text improved performance only in the rote memory test compared to students who did not receive any study aids. Eye tracking measures showed that highlighting (in both conditions) primed the cognitive process of selecting: students spent more time fixating on those words colored in red compared with the control condition. In contrast, eye tracking measures showed that graphic organizers (in both conditions) primed the cognitive processes of selecting, organizing and integrating since the inclusion of an organizer substantially affected both where their eyes fixated and moved (i.e. transitions) within the text.

Bu çalışma, 04-07 Şubat 2009 tarihleri arasında Nicasia[Kuzey Kıbrıs Türk Cumhuriyeti]’da düzenlenen World Conference on Educational Sciences’da bildiri olarak sunulmuştur. This study tries to diagnose the acquisition of a special subclass of intransitive verbs, namely ergatives, by Turkish learners of English by comparing the (partial) results of the study carried out in 2000 (as an MA Thesis) with the results of its replication conducted in 2007. In both studies all the variables were the same. Proficiency levels were determined via a cloze test and a grammaticality judgment test with various subclasses of intransitives was administered. Results of the study have revealed that proficiency levels of the participants have increased in seven years, but paired ergative verbs have remained the most problematic subclass of intransitives in both studies.

This paper investigates the usefulness of a verbal protocol approach in examining the underlying construct of a cloze test, i e. the reasons that a test writer had for deleting some lexical items from a passage to construct a cloze test. The informants were asked to “think aloud” while they were doing the cloze test. Observation of the informants verbalising their thoughts revealed inadequacies in using this approach. To compensate for this inadequacy, retrospective interviews in which the informants were asked about their choices after their verbal protocols, were conducted. The analyses of the informants' think-aloud and their retrospection showed that in their think-aloud they could not verbalize all the mental processes they used in taking the test. The results, however, suggest verbal protocols as useful instruments for collecting a particular type of data which is inaccessible when using other approaches.

This study examines the reliability and validity of translation tests as a reading comprehension measure. The following tests were administered to 70 Japanese high school students: (1) open-ended translation (OE-TRAN) test from English to Japanese; (2) multiple-choice translation (MC-TRAN) test; (3) cloze test (CLOZE-T); and (4) short-answer question test (SHOAQ-T). The results indicate the following: (1) OE-TRAN test might be a reliable and valid method for measuring reading comprehension; (2) MC-TRAN test also has a potential for being a reliable and somewhat valid method for measuring reading comprehension; (3) There was a moderate correlation between the two translation tests; (4) The participants performed similarly across the two translation tests; and (5) The examinees' proficiency level affected the level of reliability and validity of the two translation tests as far as the values of correlation coefficients are concerned, though it should be pointed out that we do not have mean-difference evidence on this matter.

Fourth semester students of Spanish as a foreign language at the university level in the US participated in two kinds of comprehensible-input based instruction, an extensive reading class that combined assigned and self-selected reading, and a ”Reading-Discussion” class that consisted of assigned reading, debates and discussions. Students in both classes outperformed those in a traditionally taught class on a check-list vocabulary test and on a grammar test. The Reading-Discussion group outperformed the Traditional students on a cloze test ( P =0.105), but there was no difference between Traditional and Reading students on the cloze. The results confirm the efficacy of comprehensible-input based pedagogy at the intermediate level.

An attempt is made to reconcile two historically important tools for the assessment of intelligence and the prediction of academic achievement with extant theories of verbal–crystallized–knowledge aspects of adult abilities. A study of 167 adults ranging in age from 18 to 69 reasserts the importance of individual differences in completion test and cloze test performance in accounting for both measures of crystallized intelligence (Gc) and four scales of knowledge (biology, U.S. history, U.S. literature, and technology). The completion tests were found to account for all of the variance in Gc and knowledge that the cloze tests accounted for, and resulted in incremental predictive validity for both domains. In addition, completion and cloze tests were found to have a suppressor effect on the relationship between Gc and Age. We note that C. Spearman's [ The nature of “Intelligence” and the principles of cognition . New York: MacMillan (1927).] assertion, namely that the completion test had higher correlations with intelligence than any other measure. Our results suggest that abstract reasoning may be far less useful in predicting learning and performance than the completion test is.

Three experiments confirm the value of extensive reading in English as a foreign language (ELF). In extensive reading, students do self-selected reading with only minimal accountability, writing brief summaries or comments on what they have read. In Experiment 1, “reluctant” EFL students at the university level in Japan did extensive reading for one semester. They began the semester far behind traditionally taught comparison students on a cloze test, but nearly caught up to them by the end of the semester. In Experiment 2, extensive readers outperformed traditionally taught students at both a prestigious university and a two-year college. In Experiment 3, extensive readers who wrote summaries in English made significantly better gains on a cloze test than a comparison class that devoted a great deal of time to cloze exercises. Gains made by extensive readers who wrote in Japanese were greater than comparisons, but the difference was not significant. Those who wrote in Japanese, however, made gains superior to both groups on a measure of writing and in reading speed.

The Cloze test has been used extensively in accounting research to measure understandability of accounting reports, textbooks and pronouncements. Although useful, previous research has generally been limited to using the output from Cloze tests as measures of understandability. Little attempt has been made to look into the black box of human information processing to identify individual psychological differences that may influence understandability scores. This study extends the research into this area and provides insight into the black box by investigating the interaction between cognitive styles and understandability, within the context of an Australian accounting pronouncement. Specifically, this paper develops and tests the hypothesis that field independent subjects should obtain significantly higher understandability scores as measured by the Cloze test. A secondary objective is to provide empirical evidence on the understandability of Statement of Accounting Concept No. 4: «Definition and Recognition of the Elements of Financial Statements» (SAC 4), given the importance of this pronouncement to the development of the conceptual framework project in Australia and the controversial claims of its lack of understandability.

This study explores the feasibility of native speaker performance criterion for validating tests for non-native speakers. The results of a cloze test administered to 202 Americans and 325 EFL learners are analysed and discussed. The study concludes with a discussion of cloze scoring and deletion start and the implications of the findings.

Health professionals frequently use printed health material in patient learning situations. However, there seems to be a discrepancy between the reading level of educational materials and the reading ability of patients. Printed materials serve no useful teaching purpose if patients are unable to understand them. This study was designed to test patients' understanding of health information written at a grade five and grade nine level. A total of 68 patients from general medical and surgical areas agreed to participate in the study. The data collection process was comprised of three parts: demographical data; scores from the Wide Range Achievement Test-Revised (WRAT-R); and scores from a Cloze test. The WRAT-R test was administered to assess reading abilities of patients. The Cloze test was used to measure comprehension of the printed health material. The results from this study demonstrate benefits in providing simplified printed health information. More subjects were able to understand written health information prepared at the grade five level than at the grade nine level (85.3% of the subjects scored above 56% in the Cloze test at grade five level against 44.1% at grade nine level). Therefore, simplifying written material to no higher than a grade five level is a useful guide for educators to follow when selecting a reading level for printed health information.

This study explored variables which may contribute to the ability to read engineering English. A test of engineering-English reading comprehension ability and a cloze test of general English language proficiency were administered to four groups of graduate students (n = 29 for each): (1) American engineers, (2) Americans in TESL, (3) Chinese engineers and (4) Chinese in TEFL. The cloze test had 50 items with a seventh-word deletion pattern. The engineering reading test contained 60 items based on three passages. The results indicated that the engineering reading test significantly (P