The interaction between language proficiency and discipline-related background knowledge is an important feature of LSAP (Languages for Specific Academic Purposes) tests and is viewed as a necessity in these tests unlike general purpose language tests which try to diminish the potential effect of discipline-related knowledge. Therefore, variables…

This study aims to understand how anxiety as a variable contributes to affect the ability in comprehending English texts evaluated on students' performance on various test types, namely 1) multiple-choice tests (MC), 2) fill-in-the-blank tests (FTB), and 3) true/false tests (TF). This research used "ex post facto" method, with responses…

This study focused on the development of the word level classification vocabulary learning (WCVL) system and the measurement of its effectiveness in terms of the potential of the system and learners' improvement in learning English material through the WCVL system. There are many ways to improve reading comprehension for those learning English as…

Writing multiple-choice test items to measure student learning in higher education is a challenge. Based on extensive scholarly research and experience, the author describes various item formats, offers guidelines for creating these items, and provides many examples of both good and bad test items. He also suggests some shortcuts for developing…

The present study measured the comprehension-based silent reading efficiency of U.S. students in grades 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12. Students read standardized grade-level passages while an eye movement recording system was used to measure reading rate, fixations (eye stops) per word, fixation durations, and regressions (right-to-left eye movements)…

The objectives of this study were to find out whether 1) students' achievement in reading comprehension taught by using INSERT strategy was higher than those taught by using SQ3R strategy, 2) Students' achievement in reading comprehension having high curiosity was higher than those having low curiosity, 3) there was an interaction between teaching…

This investigation reports on a conceptual replication of Goldman et al. (2012) which sought to determine processing patterns of better and poorer learners as they attempted to comprehend and learn from seven textual sources on the Internet in their native language English. The aim of the current investigation was to explore how reading multiple…

In this study, word knowledge and its relation to text comprehension was examined with 50 Chinese- and 20 Korean-speaking second language (L2) learners and 40 first language (L1) speakers of Japanese. Breadth and depth of word knowledge were assessed by a word-definition matching test and a word-associates selection test, respectively. Text…

The purpose of the study was to investigate the effects of reading hypertext on EFL learners' reading comprehension and analysis of contributing factors. Eighty-eight students joined the study. They took two reading comprehension tests: Hypertext Version and Printed text Version. After the tests, they were asked to fill out a questionnaire of…

This experimental study examined students' comprehension of challenging, ecologically valid, history text. We examined the benefits of the elaborative interrogation (EI) comprehension strategy and the main idea (MI) strategy when compared to an independent study (IS) control. This work extended previous research and explored the ecological…

Suggests an easy and effective procedure for testing student comprehension of a single literary work. (DD)

Discusses the difficulty of objectively testing comprehension in English. (RB)

Results suggest that: understanding can be defined in terms of information stored; and traditional learning concepts and measures are inappropriate for investigating the important effects involved in reading and auding'' prose. (Author/CB)

Based on a paper delivered at the Canadian Linguistics Association Congress held in Toronto, Canada, June 10-13, 1969. (DS)

To study the relationship between inferences made on standardized reading tests and item difficulty, 50 items on the reading comprehension section of the Metropolitan Achievement Test were analyzed independently in this study by two raters using four general categories of inferences: (1) reference inferences, (2) between proposition inferences,…