مقاله انگلیسی رایگان در مورد استراتژی های گرفتن آزمون درک مطلب – ijpie 2024

Abstract

Test-taking strategies (TTSs) have been found to be closely related to EFL learners’ successful language acquisition. However, such strategies have received scant attention from a language testing perspective (Bachman, 1990). The current mixed-methods study aimed to investigate Iranian freshman and senior high school EFL learners’ use of TTSs in reading comprehension tests and their perceptions of TTSs. To this end, 30 freshman and 30 senior high school EFL learners were selected from a public high school in Tabriz, Iran. The participants were asked to complete a questionnaire on TTSs. Afterward, six participants (three from each grade) were randomly invited for semi-structured interviews. SPSS software (version 27) was used to analyze the quantitative data gathered from the questionnaires, while the content analysis approach was utilized to analyze the qualitative data collected from the semi-structured interviews. The results indicated that senior participants used monitoring strategy the most, while freshman participants mostly used planning strategy. It was also found that both groups of participants had positive perceptions towards learning, teaching, and using TTSs. Implications are also presented as to the need for incorporating TTSs into teaching/learning methodologies, curricula, and materials.

Introduction

English, as a foreign language, has gained significant attention around the world. Thus, becoming a proficient speaker of English has been thought to be essential in schools, academia, interactional settings, and workplaces. Due to the importance of English language proficiency, language tests have been popular in gauging learners’ linguistic abilities in educational domains. The use of tests as measurement devices may be attributed to their cost-effective and time-saving characteristics. The way learners perform on tests can determine if they will be academically successful (Tunaz & Tüm, 2019). The results learners obtain on tests could be affected by cognitive, psychological, and test-administration factors (Hambleton et al., 1991). Consequently, research has demonstrated the critical role of TTSs in enhancing the performances of students in exams. Thus, the results obtained from language tests are highly crucial because they are lifechanging or high-stakes for learners (Douglas, 2010). Following that, making use of TTSs helps learners achieve higher scores on language tests. Furthermore, those who are involved in constructing language tests should take into consideration that TTSs could be used by learners on the day of examination, and they should also be aware of the test content (Pourdana et al., 2012).

Reading comprehension is very common and important in real-life situations, such as education, workplace communication, healthcare, financial literacy, and daily activities. Particularly, the importance of reading comprehension can be related to language teaching contexts, as it is the fundamental way of gaining new information for EFL learners and is regarded as a highly significant factor for determining success in language learning (Pourmohammadi, 2015). At the same time, it is a very complicated procedure in which readers are expected to understand the connections between the ideas in the text and deploy their mental processes to interpret the information. According to Veeravagu et al. (2010, p. 206), reading comprehension is “a thinking process by which a reader selects facts, information, or ideas from printed materials; decides how they relate to previous knowledge; and judges their appropriateness and worth for meeting the learner’s own objectives”. Tests, as previously stated, are the most widely used tools for measuring learners’ linguistic knowledge, and of course, this also holds true for assessing reading comprehension. Learners’ test-taking performance in general and their reading comprehension abilities in particular are enhanced by the use of TTSs (Pour Mohammadi & Abidin, 2011). It is important to discover the mental processes involved in taking tests and how students submit their answers (McCaffrey & Lockwood, 2004).

Conclusion

This study is informative and significant since only a few studies have looked into how TTSs are used in high school contexts. Moreover, no study has investigated high schoolers’ use of TTSs in Iran. Therefore, this study investigated what TTSs are used by Iranian freshman and senior high school EFL learners in reading comprehension tests. Furthermore, it was also aimed at investigating learners’ perceptions of TTSs when taking language tests. The results indicated that senior participants used monitoring strategy the most, while freshman participants mostly used planning strategy. It was also found that both groups of participants had positive perceptions towards learning, teaching, and using TTSs.

This study bridged the gap in the literature and contributed to EFL teaching and assessment by presenting illuminating findings. Specifically, the results contribute to enhanced contextspecific insights into the application of TTSs in high school settings, which allows EFL teachers to tailor their teaching methods accordingly. Furthermore, the results serve as empirical support for developing materials and curricula that draw attention to TTSs, thereby assisting learners in mastering reading comprehension tests. Accordingly, the findings of this study have some implications for EFL teachers, material developers, and curriculum designers involved in high schools. As the results provide empirical verification of the benefits of TTSs, it is wise for practitioners to take into account the key role TTSs play in helping high school EFL learners improve their test performance. Thus, the results imply the need for intentional incorporation of TTSs in teaching/learning methods in order to ensure the improvement of learners’ performance on reading comprehension tests. In addition, planning and monitoring strategies were found to be the most frequently used TTSs by freshman and senior participants, respectively; so, it could be an important reason for practitioners to primarily cover these strategies in their instructional method and materials.