Attitudes towards Teaching and Learning Test-taking Strategies for Reading Comprehension Tests: The Case of Iranian EFL Undergraduates

<p><em>There is a growing body of thought and research on strategy use on tests of reading comprehension. Nevertheless, there have been few research reviews that have treated major themes involved in thought and research on test-taking strategies, specifically in the context of reading comprehension. Hence, this paper reviews the themes that are central to the discussion of strategy choice and use on reading comprehension tests. Research themes that form the foci of the paper include discussion of test-taking strategies as they relate to the process of reading test-taking, formats of reading tests, validation of reading tests, level of language proficiency, and performance on tests of reading comprehension.</em></p>

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Teaching and learning process of test-taking strategies in answering reading comprehension section

ELT Forum: Journal of English Language Teaching ◽

10.15294/elt.v10i2.43281 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 10 (2) ◽

pp. 113-124

Author(s):

Elika Aji Zulmaini

Keyword(s):

Reading Comprehension ◽

Learning Strategies ◽

Learning Process ◽

Teaching And Learning ◽

Planning Strategy ◽

Test Taking ◽

Qualitative Research Design ◽

Monitoring Strategies ◽

Teaching And Learning Strategies ◽

Test Taking Strategies

The study was aimed at finding the difficulties faced by test takers in Reading Comprehension section of TOEFL and describing the teaching and learning process of test-taking strategies of Reading Comprehension section of TOEFL. This study used qualitative research design. To collect the data, the researchers used document analysis and observation as the instrument of the study. The subjects of this study were the students or test takers and a teacher or tutor in TOEFL preparation class. The study showed the range of difficulty faced by students or test takers are skill 6 (57.14%), skill 8 (50%), skill 7, 9, 10, and 11 (33.3%), skill 3 (31%), skill 4 and 12 (16.7%), skill 1 (8.3%), and skill 5 (0%). In teaching and learning strategies, the Planning Strategy was applied in skills 1, 3, 9, 6, 7, 4, 5, and 8. Monitoring Strategies was applied in in skills 1, 3, 9, 6, and 4. Comprehending strategy was used in skills 1, 3, 6, 7, 4, 10, and 11. Retrieval Strategy was applied in skills 9, 5, and 8. Socioaffective strategy was applied in skill 9. Test-wiseness strategy was applied in skills 1, 3, and 9. Based on findings, the researchers found that there is still high percentage of difficult skills faced by students or test takers and more than one strategies were applied in almost every skill of the Reading Comprehension Section of TOEFL.

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ANLP/NAACL 2000 Workshop on Reading comprehension tests as evaluation for computer-based language understanding sytems -

10.3115/1117595 ◽

2000 ◽

Keyword(s):

Reading Comprehension ◽

Language Understanding ◽

Computer Based ◽

Comprehension Tests ◽

Reading Comprehension Tests

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Exploring which test-taker characteristics predict young L2 learners’ performance on listening and reading comprehension tests

Language Testing ◽

10.1177/0265532221991134 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 026553222199113

Author(s):

Sarah Sok ◽

Hye Won Shin ◽

Juhyun Do

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Reading Comprehension ◽

Test Performance ◽

Test Taker ◽

Phonological Working Memory ◽

Young Learners ◽

L2 Learners ◽

L2 Listening ◽

Comprehension Tests ◽

Reading Comprehension Tests

Test-taker characteristics (TTCs), or individual difference variables, are known to be a systematic source of variance in language test performance. Although previous research has documented the impact of a range of TTCs on second language (L2) learners’ test performance, few of these studies have involved young learners. Given that young L2 learners undergo rapid maturational changes in their cognitive abilities, are susceptible to affective factors in unique ways, and have little autonomy with respect to the context of L2 acquisition, the relationship between their personal attributes and their test performance merit separate research attention. To fill this gap, we investigated the extent to which sixth-grade, Korean-L1, EFL learners’ ( n = 107) TTCs predicted their performance on tests of L2 listening and reading comprehension. The TTCs under investigation included three cognitive characteristics (aptitude, phonological working memory, L1 competence), one affective factor (motivation), and two demographic variables (socioeconomic status and gender). Results showed that aptitude and phonological working memory significantly predicted participants’ performance on both L2 listening and reading comprehension tests, whereas motivation predicted performance on the L2 listening comprehension test only. These findings suggest that higher aptitude, phonological working memory, and motivation contribute positively to young learners’ L2 outcomes.

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