The slides tend to elucidate the pragmatic approach to language testing. They are specifically related to the cloze procedure and varieties of cloze tests as well.

1. Mohammed Pazhouhesh
Khayyam University of Mashhad
Farhangian University of Mashhad, Beheshti Campus
CLOZE TEST:
Rationale & Varieties

2. Cloze procedure
Pragmatic Testing
Khayyam IUniversityMohd. Pazhouhesh

3. Advantages of DP tests
Good for diagnostic purposes and developing
remedial materials in educational programs
Desirable psychometric characteristics of
validity & reliability
Highly practical in administration and scoring
procedure
Mohd. Pazhouhesh Khayyam Institute

4. Threats to DP Tests
Divisibility of language competence into skills,
subskills, components and subcomponents for
measuring them separately
Incapability for measuring overall
communicative language ability
Additive vs discrete notion of language
processing in Gestalt psychology
Khayyam InstituteMohd. Pazhouhesh

5. Cloze Procedure
Cloze: A coined word to represent “closure” in
Gestalt Psychology
Gestalt : A pattern, a configuration, a figure and
a
background.
Gestalt psychology: an approach in psychology
which describes how our perceptions are
organized in figure/ground pairs.
Khayyam InstituteMohd. Pazhouhesh

6. 6
Basic premise of Gestalt psychology
Humans are not passive receivers of sensory
information. Our perceptions are active, lively, and
organized
We actively organize perceptions into coherent
wholes – today the process is referred to as top-
down or conceptually driven processing.
 The whole influences the way parts are perceived.
 Perception causes sensory data to form a holistic pattern or
Gestaltien.
 The whole is different from the sum of the parts.

7. Law of Closure
Objects grouped together are seen as a whole.
We tend to ignore gaps and complete contour
ones. In the images above, there are no triangles
or circles, but our minds fill in the missing
information to create familiar shapes and images.
Khayyam InstituteMohd. Pazhouhesh

8. Law of Closure

9. Law of Similarity
Khayyam InstituteMohd. Pazhouhesh

11. Law of Pregnanz
Khayyam Institute

12. Law of Proximity

14. Law of Continuity

15. Closure and Cloze
Application of closure law to language processing
Focus on holistic language ability in the absence of
some parts (blanks)
Measuring comprehension through passages
containing some closures or blanks
Cloze as an alternative to traditional reading
comprehension test (Tylor)
Cloze as an indicator of general reading ability and
language processing(efficiency in using grammatical
processes to restore the missing parts in a text)
Khayyam InstituteMohd. Pazhouhesh

16. Cloze Procedure
Definition: As a diagnostic reading assessment, cloze procedure
refers to any reading passage of appropriate length and
difficulty with every nth word deleted.
How to determine value of “n”
 Ranging from 2 to 10.
 7 as the most appropriate value for “n”
How to determine length
 220 to 250 words with every 7th
word deleted
How to determine passage difficulty
 Applying readability formulas
 # of words # of polysyllable words
Readability = —————— + (————----------————) 40
 # of sentences # of words
Khayyam InstituteMohd. Pazhouhesh

17. Varieties of Cloze Procedure
Based on psycholinguistic processing
1. Production Type tests
• Open-ended standard cloze tests
1. Comprehension Type Cloze Tests
• Closed-ended multiple choice cloze tests
Based on item modality
o Oral Type
o Written Type
Based on teaching & testing purposes
o Fill-in-the blank
o Fixed-ratio deletion cloze
Khayyam InstituteMohd. Pazhouhesh

18. Varieties of Cloze Procedure
Random-ratio deletion cloze
Stratified random deletion cloze
Catered-technique cloze
Education has two purposes. First, education provides tools so that
w__ can earn a living. Some of t__es__ tools are basic tools, such
as r__ad__ng and writing. Others are technical skills s__c__ as
typing, accounting, and data processing. S__m__ others are highly
professional skills peculiar, f__ __ example, to medicine, to law, and
t__ teaching. Secondly, education provides experience so t__ __t
we can learn how to live. E_ _ _ provides a background of
ideas for u__in__ the past. It provides a sense of values for
meeting the future.
Khayyam InstituteMohd. Pazhouhesh

19. Varieties of Cloze Procedure
Cloze-elide / editing test
Education has two goals. First, it provides very means so that we
may earn the our living. Some of these tools are actual main tools,
such as reading or writing. Others may are technical skills, such as
typing, quite accounting, and data processing. Still others are would
highly professional skills peculiar, for example, to such medicine, to
science, and to teaching. Secondly, it is provides experience so that
we can learn the how to live. Education provides knowledge that of
ideas for using the past. It after provides a sense of values for the
meeting the future.
Standard Dictation
Partial dictation
Elicited imitation
Dicto-Comp
Dictation with noise
Khayyam InstituteMohd. Pazhouhesh

20. Advantages and disadvantages
Advantages
Easy to construct,
Easy to administer
Easy to score.
Disadvantages
not possible to predict accurately people’s
abilities with respect to separate skills.
need for careful selection of texts and some
pretesting.
Inability to tell us about oral ability.

22. Is the red dot inside or outside
the box