Does the Mode of Testing Matter in Reading Comprehension? When Learners’ Perception Enters into the Picture

Abstract

Over the last few years, technology has offered new ways of teaching and learning. Accordingly, educational systems are adopting what technology has purveyed to education. The abrupt upsurge of the COVID-19 pandemic also expedited this employment and impelled educational systems to shift to online teaching and learning. Consequently, the offline and paper-based mode of testing has been being replaced with the online and remote mode. Whether the testing mode itself, in its nature, affects the use of reading comprehension strategies and whether learners follow the same patterns of strategies during offline and online reading comprehension tests have not been paid enough attention by scholars, and the findings of few studies in this regard in the literature are also disparate. Thus, the present paper investigated and compared the use of strategies and their patterns of use in offline and online reading comprehension testing. The quantitative analysis of the data revealed that learners apply reading comprehension strategies more in the offline testing mode although they employ the same patterns of strategies in offline and online reading comprehension testing. The qualitative phase of the study uncovered the reasons. That is learners’ perception, shaped by their experience and familiarization with the mode of testing; individual differences; washback and reverse washback effects; and affective and emotional factors, yields this difference. Implications and suggestions for future research are also discussed.