Gap-filling Test Research Articles

Differences in scanpath pattern and verbal working memory predicts efficient reading in the Cloze gap-filling test.

Different tests measure text comprehension, including the cloze gap-filling test, often used for language learning. Different studies hypothesized cognitive strategies in this type of test and their relationship with working memory and performance. However, no study investigated the cloze test, working memory, and possible cognitive strategies, while performing the test. Therefore, this study aimed to identify cognitive visual strategies in the cloze test by applying an unsupervised algorithm and to analyze the relationship between these strategies with working memory and performance in the cloze test. Our sample consisted of 51 university students, the largest sample in studies of cognitive strategies with cloze tests. Participants answered an 11-item cloze test in a computer with eye-tracking, a verbal working memory test, and a visuospatial working memory test. Our analysis of participants' scanpath identified two main strategies: one with fewer toggles between text and word bank and fewer fixations than the other one, indicating the existence of a global strategy. Furthermore, a model predicting the efficiency of participants in the cloze test found that item complexity, using a global strategy, and higher scores of working memory were the most significant predictors. These results confirm the hypothesis of a global strategy being related to successfully achieving higher-order reading processes.

C-Test construct validity: Evidence from nonparametric item response theory

C-Test is a gap-filling test designed to measure first and second language proficiency. Over the past four decades, researchers have shown the fit of C-Test data to parametric item response theory (IRT) models, but no study so far has shown the fit of C-Tests to nonparametric IRT models. The purpose of this study is to contribute to the ongoing C-Test validation project by providing evidence of fit to the Mokken scale analysis as a widely used nonparametric IRT model. A six-passage C-Test battery was analyzed using the monotone homogeneity model and the double monotonicity model of Mokken. Unidimensionality was evaluated using the automatic item selection procedure. Findings showed that the C-Test passages form a strong unidimensional scale, fit well to the monotone homogeneity model, and, after deleting one item, have a sufficient fit to the double monotonicity model. The findings also indicated that the items form a hierarchy, and persons can be located on an ordinal scale using their C-Test sum scores. Implications of the study for C-Test validity and application are discussed.

The Effect of Using VOA Podcast on Students Intensive Listening Skill

The purpose of this research was to find out the effect of podcast or VOA podcast in improving the eight grade students English listening skill. This research utilized a sample of 30 students from a class, comprising 13 males and 17 females. Data collection for this research involved the use of measurement techniques, specifically the gap-filling test as the instrument. The collected data was analyzed to assess the impact of podcasts on students' listening skills. The results of the study revealed a significant improvement in students' listening skills with a t-value of 7.131, exceeding the critical value of 2.045 (t-value = 7.131, df=29). This indicated a significant impact of using podcasts in EFL students' listening learning (7.131 > 2.045) with a medium effect size of 0.77. Therefore, the findings suggest that the use of podcasts effectively contributed to the improvement of students' listening skills.

Psychometric approaches to analyzing C-tests

The C-test is a type of gap-filling test designed to efficiently measure second language proficiency. The typical C-test consists of several short paragraphs with the second half of every second word deleted. The words with deleted parts are considered as items nested within the corresponding paragraph. Given this testlet structure, it is commonly taken for granted that the C-test design may violate the local independence assumption. However, this assumption has not been fully investigated in the C-test research to date, including the evaluation of alternative psychometric models (i.e., unidimensional and multidimensional) to calibrate and score the C-test. This study addressed each of these issues using a large data set of responses to an English-language C-test. First, we examined the local item independence assumption via multidimensional item response theory (IRT) models, Yen’s Q3, and Jackknife Slope Index. Second, we evaluated several IRT models to determine optimal approaches to scoring the C-test. The results support an interpretation of unidimensionality for the C-test items within a paragraph, with only minor evidence of local item dependence. Furthermore, the two-parameter logistic (2PL) IRT model was found to be the most appropriate model for calibrating and scoring the C-test. Implications for designing, scoring, and analyzing C-tests are discussed.

Correlation between Students’ Mastery of English Tenses and Students’ Achievement in Listening Autobiography Podcast

This study intends to find the correlation between the students’ mastery of English tenses and students’ achievement in listening podcasts and specifically on autobiography podcasts. The researchers use a quantitative method to analyze the correlation between students’ grammar mastery and listening podcast achievement. The population of this research is the students of the English Education Department Faculty of Teaching and Educational Science of UIN Syarif Hidayatullah that consisted of 17 students. The study conducts two tests; a grammar test and a listening podcast test. Each test is given a score of 100 if the students answer all the questions correctly. The grammar test uses a gap-filling test containing 15 questions. In the listening test, the study uses an autobiography audio of Benjamin Franklin and uses a multiple-choice test containing 10 questions. The result shows that more than half of the sample got low scores in grammar but got high scores in listening comprehension. It means by using Karl Pearson’s correlation coefficient theory there is a correlation between their grammar tenses knowledge and their listening comprehension was normal positive.

Development of an Industry 4.0-Based Analytical Method for the Value Stream Centered Optimization of Demand-Driven Warehousing Systems

In real life situations, the material handling strategy of on-site storage systems is usually determined during the design of the storage system, which is no longer reviewed later. The strategy is typically determined by the person(s) designing the storage system, without the use of scientific methods, based on previous experience. Without a thorough periodic review of operational strategy, most companies’ warehousing systems have significant logistical losses (e.g., unnecessary material handling, waiting, operations), which also negatively affects the sustainability of the logistics operations. Therefore, eliminating these losses can increase both the competitiveness and the sustainability of companies. For this reason, the aim of this publication is to introduce a gap-filling test method that allows the selection of an optimal material handling strategy covering the total value stream in a demand-driven storage environment, using the opportunities offered by the Industry 4.0 concept, in particular in the field of big data analysis. This integrated approach has so far not emerged in the study of warehouse material handling strategies. Beyond the obvious economic benefits, the application of this method can clearly help companies to achieve a higher level of sustainability in their logistics operations, as it allows storage systems to operate more efficiently while minimizing material handling losses, ultimately resulting in a lesser demand for energy and raw materials. Moreover, this can also result in a reduction in the human and machine resources required to perform the tasks.

Fill the gap: A novel test to elicit nominal plurals in Sign Language of the Netherlands

The present study introduces a novel gap-filling test to elicit plural nouns in Sign Language of the Netherlands (NGT). As of yet, nominal plurals in NGT have not been described in detail, as eliciting plural nouns is not without challenges. In previous research on NGT (Zwitserlood and Nijhof 1999), native signers were asked to describe pictures of plural objects. However, when describing pictures, the signers automatically also expressed the spatial distribution of the objects depicted on the stimulus picture, using localization. As a consequence, it remains unclear what ‘pure’ plurals – without localization – look like. The goal of our gap-filling task is to disentangle pluralization from localization: participants are asked to insert plural nouns in signed sentence contexts where the spatial distribution of the referents is irrelevant. After piloting the task, five deaf native signers participated. The task succeeded in eliciting pure plural forms that were not spatially distributed, and the results show that NGT optionally employs reduplication to mark the pure plural of nouns. We conclude that our gap-filling task successfully controls for localization, targeting the desired structure without using written language. In future studies, the gap-filling task can be applied to other sign languages, targeting also other construction types.

教學明示程度、學習認知風格與呈現模態對認知語言學為基礎之視覺輔助應用於介系詞教學成效之影響: 以台灣英語課室為例

This study investigates the roles of instruction explicitness and learning styles on the relative effectiveness of multimedia glossing with texts and cognitive linguistics-based image schemas presented in two modalities, i.e., static and animated, on Taiwanese college EFL students learning three polysemous prepositions: above, on, and over. Based on a pre-post-test design, the experiments consist of a free writing test and a gap-fill test, respectively used to gauge the active and passive aspects of learners’ receptive lexical gain. Three groups of intermediate learners were recruited, receiving the same text annotations but different treatments configured in presentation modes and explicitness: SI group with text-static imagery annotations under implicit instruction, AI group with text-animation annotations under implicit instruction, and AE group with text-animation annotations under explicit instruction. The results suggest the following: (1) animations, compared with static imagery, seem able to better enrich the meaningfulness of image schemas and elicit larger and more durable learning effects, especially on the more active aspects of the receptive gain; (2) explicit verbal cues enhanced the learning effects on the active aspects of the receptive gains; (3) visualizers benefit more from animations than verbalizers in both active and passive aspects of the receptive gains, especially if verbal cues are provided. Pedagogical suggestions include the utilization of image schema visual aids in a dynamic presentation mode accompanied by sufficient explicit instruction to optimize the effects of learning polysemous words.

ERRORS IN USING PREPOSITIONS: AN ANALYSIS ON ENGLISH FRESHMEN MAJORING ON LITERATURE AT UNIVERSITAS NEGERI PADANG IN ACADEMIC YEAR 2019

The research was aimed at analyzing the English department students errors in using prepositions. The subject of this research was the the freshmen of English Department majoring on literature in academic year 2019. Out of 103 students, 31% of them were choosen to be a sample by using simple random technique. The data had been gathered by using gap-filling test. The results of the data analysis show that from 1240 answers in the test, there were 796 errors made by the students. The errors included 184 (59%) errors prepositions of time, 213 (69%) errors in prepositions of place, 236 (76%) errors prepositions of direction/movement and 163 (52%) errors other kinds of prepositions. In addition, related to the cause of errors, it was the target language that mostly causes the students commit errors (intralingual errors). Based on the findings, it can be concluded that the freshmen of English students commit 64% total of errors in using prepositions and the errors itself mostly are due to the students’ lack ability in grammatical.

Testing the Use of a Collocation Retrieval Tool Without Prior Training by Learners of Spanish

AbstractThis experimental study tests the usability of a collocation retrieval tool that combines corpus and dictionary features in order to help learners of Spanish as a Foreign Language to improve their production of collocations. More specifically, the study tests the extent to which such a tool is effective without prior training, and evaluates which of its features might be improved. Two experiments were conducted. The first experiment involved Japanese-L1 learners of Spanish. One subgroup completed a gap-fill test both with and without the collocation tool, while another subgroup used electronic bilingual dictionaries instead of the collocation tool. In a second experiment, we chose a more heterogeneous group of participants with less experience in using lexicographic tools. Results show that learners do not need previous training to benefit from the collocation tool, but also that they do not check corpus examples as often as they might.

An Analysis of Students' Ability in Distinguishing Lexical and Structural Ambiguity in English Sentences at Second Grade of SMA 1 Labuapi in the Academic Year 2016-2017

Ambiguity is the property of having two or more distinct meanings or interpretations. Sometimes we found many ambiguities sentences when we are reading or listen to the English sentences. A word or sentence is ambiguous if it can be interpreted in more than one way. The problem stated in this study is: How is the students’ ability in distinguishing lexical and structural ambiguity in English sentences? The purpose of this study is to investigate the students’ ability in distinguishing lexical and structural ambiguity in English sentences at second grade of SMAN 1 Labuapi in academic year 2016/2017. This study used a descriptive qualitative approach. The writer used purposive sampling for taking the sample, namely class IPA 2 which consists of 22 students. The data were collected by a gap-filling test for lexical ambiguity word class of noun and label for structural ambiguity. The results of the research demonstrate that the students of SMAN 1 Labuapi were categorized into a very poor with the average score was 4.450. The writer illustrates the analysis result in the percentage of all test’s items in simple sentences, there were 890 ambiguous words and phrase. Lexical ambiguity involves noun (150) and structural ambiguity involve noun phrase (30). Finally, based on the research findings, the writer concluded that more than a half of students at the second grade of SMAN 1 Labuapi had very poor abilities in distinguishing lexical and structural ambiguity in English sentences.

Investigating the collocations available to EAP writers

Studies on the productive use of collocations have enabled researchers to harness a wealth of information about the phenomenon. However, most such studies focus on the collocations that come to the surface in finished texts, and have not been able to capture the range of collocational choices available for writers to choose from as they write. The present investigation addresses this gap by examining the collocations users of academic English at a British university were able to recall when presented with a selection of general academic writing frames. The study examined the collocations instinctively available to a group of 90 academics, tutors of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) and students at PhD, MA and undergraduate levels in an academic writing gap-filling test where more than one collocation could be used in each gap. The results indicate that experience of English academic writing plays a more decisive role than having English as a first language (L1) in the collocations effortlessly available to EAP users.

Reading Comprehension and Tolerance against Comprehension Ambiguities: An Empirical Study of Iranian GFL-Learners in Communicative Education

The present study examines the influence of ambiguity tolerance on the performance of Iranian GFL-learners (Note 1) at level B1 in the processing of gap-filling-text tests. It is assumed that learners with more tolerance of ambiguity achieve better results in the reading comprehension or in the contextual guessing of the omitted words. 34 GFL learners at Level B1 in Iran Language Institute in Mashhad have completed a three-part pilot gap-filling test as well as the pilot questionnaire called SLTAS (Note 2) to assess their ambiguity tolerance. In order to examine the hypothesis and to answer the research question, the total score of the subjects who participated in the pilot and the main study were analyzed by SPSS program version 18.0. The quantitative-correlative analysis did not demonstrate a statistically significant relationship between the tolerance of ambiguity and reading comprehension. In conclusion, with regard to the multi-dimensionality of reading comprehension, and despite the divergent empirical evidence in research literature, it is still advisable to take into account the affective, cognitive, and extra-linguistic determinants of reading comprehension in further empirical studies from various aspects and to greater extents. This study provides suggestions for the recognition of the interaction between different affective, and cognitive influential factors in the multidimensional reading process, as well as a basis for the teachers’ and linguists’ methodology with respect to learners in terms of their individual differences while instructing reading comprehension in German as a foreign language.

Children’s felicitous use of intersubjective particles evidences sensitivity to constellations of perspectives

Discourse particles specify how interlocutors’ understandings converge and differ, and appropriate use requires ability to represent propositions from two perspectives simultaneously. This makes discourse particles a highly useful case for investigating developments in children’s ability to monitor and compare mental states, a controversial issue in child language research. Being neither salient, nor obligatory, the particles further allow us to assess children’s motivation to look for interpersonal meanings without strong linguistic incentives. By means of a corpus analysis of peer group conversations (123 hours, 19 children: 1;9–6;3 years), the present study examines at which ages Danish kindergarteners demonstrate stable mastery of the interpersonal contextual demands of five particles marking shared knowledge, disagreement and differential access to knowledge. As background for evaluating children’s particle use as well as order of occurrence, adult consensus on particle meanings was substantiated with a gap-filling test and relative input frequency estimated in caregiver speech. Children were significantly above chance in producing intersubjective particles in felicitous contexts and differentiated clearly between the particles. While there was a strong increase in token frequency over the kindergarten years, children evidenced sensitivity to context from their first productions, and particle felicity did not improve significantly with higher age or production experience. The results suggest that 3-to-6-year-olds routinely monitor and compare representational states, and that they are highly motivated to coordinate conversations as joint actions by pointing to interlocutor perspectives.This article is part of Special Collection: Perspective Taking

Predicting study success of international students

AbstractThe study success of international students in Higher Education (HE) in English speaking countries has been a major concern for both the students and the host universities. However, studies on the predictive validity of established language tests, such as IELTS, are inconclusive (for an overview see Daller and Phelan 2013, Predicting international student study success.Applied Linguistics Review4(1). 173–193). The present study explores the predictive validity of new test formats that could be used in the admissions process alongside the established tests to identify students who are at risk. In the long-term these new test formats have the potential to form the basis of a stand-alone admissions test. The formats under investigation are a gap-filling test (C-test) as test of general language proficiency and several measures of lexical richness (Guiraud, Guiraud Advanced, “D”; see also methodology). All measures were taken at the beginning of an academic year to predict the average grades at the end of the academic year (General Points Average/ GPA). In total 107 international students, mainly from China, with a wide range of subjects participated in the study. A multiple regression analysis including hierarchical models shows that the C-test and “Guiraud” have the highest predictive validity. Given the fact that these two measures can be administered quite easily in a short period of time, we conclude that they have clear advantages over IELTS in the prediction of international student’s study success.

A comparison of the effectiveness of EFL students’ use of dictionaries and an online corpus for the enhancement of revision skills

AbstractQualitative research focusing primarily on advanced-proficiency second language (L2) learners suggests that online corpora can function as useful reference tools for language learners, especially when addressing phraseological issues. However, the feasibility and effectiveness of online corpus consultation for learners at a basic level of L2 proficiency have been relatively unexplored. The current study of Japanese-L1 (first language) learners in an EFL (English as a foreign language) context (N=117) addresses these gaps in research. A preliminary investigation (Experiment 1) examined EFL learners (n=78) as they used the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA: Davies, 2008–) to revise essays. Experiment 2 (n=39) used a within-subjects comparison to determine whether participants attained greater accuracy in supplying the missing word in a gap-fill test when using an electronic dictionary or COCA. The survey results from the two experiments revealed that participants generally found using an online corpus difficult. In Experiment 2, a paired-samples t-test showed that participants, at an alpha of p=.05 two-tailed, were marginally better able to answer test questions when using the online corpus than they were when using an electronic dictionary, p=0.030. The implications of the study within the context of previous research are discussed along with pedagogical recommendations and possible avenues for future research.

Adjective + Noun Collocational Competence of L1 Thai Learners: A Comparative Study of a Regular Program and an English Program

The main purpose of the current research was to determine how Thai EFL students studying in the regular and English programs use adjective + noun collocations. The second purpose was to find out the relationship between school curricula and collocational competence of adjective + noun in three tests. The participants were 30 regular program students and another 30 English program students from a private secondary school in Bangkok, Thailand. The data collection instruments included the Gap-Filling Test (Test 1), the Collocation Selection Test (Test 2), and the Descriptive Written Task (Test 3). The main findings have shown that, in Test 1, the regular program participants (69.33%) scored higher than the English program participants (57.67%). According to the findings from Test 2, there was no significant difference between the curricula and the Collocation Selection Test. For Test 3, the regular program participants used more adjective + noun collocations (279 tokens) than did the English program ones (211 tokens). The pedagogical implications were also proposed to enhance learners’ collocational competence, especially adjective + noun collocations.

Does copying idioms promote their recall?

This paper reports an experiment designed to evaluate an attempt to improve the effectiveness of an existing L2 idiom-learning tool. In this tool, learners are helped to associate the abstract, idiomatic meaning of expressions such as jump the gun (act too soon) with their original, concrete meaning (e.g. associating jump the gun with the scene of a track athlete who starts running before the starting pistol is fired). This association lends concreteness to target lexis, which is known to facilitate learning (Paivio, A., & Desrochers, A. (1979). Effects of an imagery mnemonic on second language recall and comprehension. Canadian Journal of Psychology, 33, 17–28). It is a mental operation that orients the learner first and foremost to the semantic dimension of the expression, however. It does not as such engage the learner with formal properties of the expression, such as its orthography. In an effort to stimulate the latter engagement, a copy exercise was incorporated in the learning procedure. The merit of this additional exercise was evaluated by having one group of students (N= 21) study 25 idioms according to the new procedure, while a comparison group (N= 21) was given an additional meaning-oriented task instead. Recall by the two groups was compared immediately and two weeks after the treatment by means of a gap-fill test. The copy exercise was not found to promote better recall, a result we discuss with reference to levels of processing theory (Lockhart, R.S., & Craik, F.I.G. (1990). Levels of processing: A retrospective commentary on a framework for memory research. Canadian Journal of Psychology, 44, 87–112).

Oral Corrective Feedback and Learning of English Modals

The study examines the effects of interactional corrective feedback (CF) in the form of recasts (i.e. teacher's reformulation) and metalinguistic information (i.e. provision of some grammatical information) in response to any erroneous utterance in English modals. Evidence regarding the relative effectiveness of these types is mixed (reviewed by Li [1]), and only few studies have isolated metalinguistic feedback from recasts. The current classroom study aims to address these issues, and focuses on learning of English modals, a structure which has been neglected in corrective feedback studies and is considered to be difficult for EFL/ESL learners (Celce- Murcia and Freeman [2]). Pre-intermediate L1 Arabic learners (n=36) in an ESL context were randomly assigned into two experimental groups; metalinguistic information (MI) and recast (R), and one task only (TO) group. Three hour oral communicative tasks were held in four consecutive weeks. Learning was measured via pre-, post-, and delayed post- picture description test (PD), gap fill test (GF), and timed grammaticality judgment test (TGJT). An exit questionnaire, (e.g., Sheen [3]) to check awareness of the target feature and an attitudinal questionnaire to measure participants’ attitude towards error correction and grammatical accuracy were administered. The results demonstrate that metalinguistic information and recasts were beneficial for learning of English modals and learners’ preference for recast was more than that for metalinguistic information feedback.

The Effect of Colloquial Jordanian Arabic on Learning the English Definite Article and Negation

This study was conducted to investigate the influence of Colloquial Jordanian Arabic upon the use of negation and the definite article in English. The sample of the study consisted of 100 male and 100 female Jordanian 10 th graders in the academic year 2011-2012. The students were randomly selected from public schools in the region of Karak-Jordan. A translation test as well as a gap-fill test were constructed to arrive at the objectives of the study. The study concluded that the students committed more transfer errors in their use of English negation and the definite article than other types of errors in the same syntactic areas as a result of the effect of CJA.