2. Reference
Alderson, J.C. (2000) Assessing reading. (pp. 85-115). C.U.P
A MODELING OFREADING STRATEGIESINTO THEREADING PROCESS FROM
A METACOGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE
3. Research into the assessment of reading.
FACTORS AFFECTING THE DIFFICULTY OF READING
TEST ITEMS
FACTORS AFFECTING THE DIFFICULTY OF READING
TEST TEXTS
Background knowledge Vs Text Content
Text length
A reading comprehension exercise:
A Young, Blind Whiz on Computers
Reading Strategy “Inferring”
A MODELING OFREADING STRATEGIESINTO THEREADING PROCESS FROM
A METACOGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE
4. Reference
Alderson, J.C. (2000) Assessing reading. (pp. 85-115). C.U.P
TECHNIQUES FOR TESTING READING
Chapter Seven
A MODELING OFREADING STRATEGIESINTO THEREADING PROCESS FROM
A METACOGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE
5. Conclusions
Background Knowledge versus Text Content
1.Testing Techniques and Background knowledge have a
great effect on test scores.
2.Content familiarity may enable linguistic skills and
reading comprehension skills.
3.Students do not necessarily do better on materials in
their own academic field.
4.Is Language level a better predictor than knowledge of
the subject area?
A MODELING OFREADING STRATEGIESINTO THEREADING PROCESS FROM
A METACOGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE
6. FACTORS AFFECTING THE
DIFFICULTY OF READING
TEST TEXTS
Background knowledge Vs
Text Content
Stone inscriptions from ancient Athens and Attica
A MODELING OFREADING STRATEGIESINTO THEREADING PROCESS FROM
A METACOGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE
7. Shohamy (1984) cited in Alderson (p.102) showed
that the text had a significant effect on test scores.
Background Knowledge versus Text Content
A MODELING OFREADING STRATEGIESINTO THEREADING PROCESS FROM
A METACOGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE
Whether these texts were based on:
Multiple-choice questions or open-ended questions
Questions were presented in L1 or the L2
8. “subject-related texts might also discriminate against
individuals who happen to possess less background
knowledge in a particular field” (p.103).
Background Knowledge versus Text Content
A MODELING OFREADING STRATEGIESINTO THEREADING PROCESS FROM
A METACOGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE
9. Background Knowledge versus Text Content
A MODELING OFREADING STRATEGIESINTO THEREADING PROCESS FROM
A METACOGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE
“Erickson and Molly (1983) study suggests that facilitating
effect of content familiarity may extend to enabling
linguistic skills to be better deployed and displayed”
(p.103) yes, but…
10. Background Knowledge versus Text Content
“Students do not necessarily do better on materials in their own academic field”
Moy (1975), koh (1985) and Perez and Shoham (1990)
A MODELING OFREADING STRATEGIESINTO THEREADING PROCESS FROM
A METACOGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE
11. Alderson (2000. p.108-109) A problem all reading-test
developers face is how long the texts should be on which
they base their tests.
Text Length
A MODELING OFREADING STRATEGIESINTO THEREADING PROCESS FROM
A METACOGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE
12. Engineer (1997) “texts longer
than 1.000 words were used, the
abilities that could be measured
changed”.
Text Length
“The ability to identify the main idea of long texts
might be thought to be qualitatively different from
the ability to identify the man idea in shorter texts ”.
“Testing for academic purposes, is that
this practice reflects more closely the
situation where students have to read
and study long texts ”.
A MODELING OFREADING STRATEGIESINTO THEREADING PROCESS FROM
A METACOGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE
13. Text Length
“Long texts allow testers to assess syntactic and lexical
knowledge more than discourse processing abilities..
It is also likely to be much easier to measure
reading speed using longer texts than with a
number of short passages with associated
questions” Alderson (p.108-109)
A MODELING OFREADING STRATEGIESINTO THEREADING PROCESS FROM
A METACOGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE
14. Text Length
SHORT TEXTS
Abilities are
qualitatively better
measured.
LONG TEXTS
Abilities are
qualitatively different.
Better for testing
academic purposes
- Syntactic knowledge
- Lexical knowledge
- Background knowledge
Measure reading
speed.
A MODELING OFREADING STRATEGIESINTO THEREADING PROCESS FROM
A METACOGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE
15. SUMMARY
We have explored variables that affect the assessment of reading
in a first and second language.
The influence of both the questioning set and the passages on
which comprehension is assessed.
The implications of difficulty of a reading test towards the
relationship between text and items.
The language of the questions, their wording and the frequency
of the vocabulary used.
The relationship between the question and the required
information in the text are clearly crucial.
Item testing reading comprehension and those testing what
might be called linguistic skills is something to be bore in mind
when designing reading tests.
A MODELING OFREADING STRATEGIESINTO THEREADING PROCESS FROM
A METACOGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE
16. SUMMARY
We have explored variables that affect the assessment of reading
in a first and second language.
Whether vocabulary knowledge is felt to be a relevant or a
contaminating variable in reading assessment is an important
consideration.
Text topic clearly has an important effect on comprehension,
and especially in the extent to which it engages background
knowledge.
A MODELING OFREADING STRATEGIESINTO THEREADING PROCESS FROM
A METACOGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE
18. In linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing
sentences in natural languages. In addition to referring to the discipline, the
term syntax is also used to refer directly to the rules and principles that
govern the sentence structure of any individual language.
Previous Slide
Text Length
A MODELING OFREADING STRATEGIESINTO THEREADING PROCESS FROM
A METACOGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE
19. LET’S THINK ABOUT IT…
A teacher of English is teaching reading
comprehension to some engineer students. Though,
he/she brings a reading of this particular field in
English.
1. Why do you think he/she did it?
2. Is it correct or not? Why?
3. What is he/she evaluating?
20. Techniques for Testing Reading
Background Knowledge versus Text Content
‘test method’, ‘test technique’ and ‘test format’
•The cloze test and gap-filling
tests
•Multiple-choice techniques
•Matching techniques
•Ordering tasks
•Editing tests
• The C-test
• The cloze elide test
• Short answers tests
• The free recall test
• The summary test
• The gapped summary
• Information transfer
techniques
See a range of different objective and subjective techniques
A MODELING OFREADING STRATEGIESINTO THEREADING PROCESS FROM
A METACOGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE
