Graded reader comprehension questions and item discrimination analysis

Ramonda, Kris; Sevigny, Paul

doi:10.1093/elt/ccy062

Cited by 4 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…It is also common that the reading records entail reading comprehension data. Book summaries/reports (Takase, 2007;Yamashita, 2013) and quizzes on texts (Ramonda & Sevigny, 2019;Sun, 2003) are often used to measure reading comprehension. Performance in such tasks has evaluative meaning in that it helps determine whether students have properly understood what they claim to have read.…”

Section: Program Structure and Treatment Outcomesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cheating in Extensive Reading: Myth or Reality?

Mikami

Shiozawa

2023

Sage Open

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This study addresses the question of whether the use of problematic strategies is a threat to the effectiveness of a specific form of extensive reading. Extensive reading has been considered an effective way to receive comprehensible input in second language learning, and its benefits on the development of second language reading skills have been well documented. Meanwhile, it is also common that extensive reading is implemented as a part of existing language courses. In such courses, learners’ performance on comprehension tasks could affect their course grades. A potential concern here is that problematic strategies, including cheating, are employed to increase task performance. Interview and questionnaire surveys were conducted in the English department of a Japanese university, where active efforts are made to realize principlebased extensive reading, and extensive reading performance (i.e., the amount of reading) affects students’ course grades. While there were large individual and group differences in the students’ behavior, the results provide evidence that the use of problematic strategies is a real threat to the effectiveness of extensive reading. Based on our observations, we also propose some possible ways of promoting positive engagement with extensive reading.

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Section: Program Structure and Treatment Outcomesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cheating in Extensive Reading: Myth or Reality?

Mikami

Shiozawa

2023

Sage Open

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“…Item discrimination evaluation is an important phase in the development of a test (Ramonda & Sevigny, 2019). It is useful for test designers in determining which items to keep, modify, or omit in a test.…”

Section: Item Discriminationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Polish Psychological Bulletin

Barani Toroghi,

Zohoorian,

Ghoshuni

2021

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The development of international proficiency tests such as IELTS, which entail important decision making about people's academic lives, requires complex processes to ensure item discrimination. Previous research has indicated that IELTS has been ineffective in omitting distractor components, which may offer limitations in differentiating among the candidates. Among all the sections, particular attention has been paid to the reading comprehension component and it is considered as a criterion for determining whether a person is academically literate or not. While there seems to be a deep linkage between brain and reading comprehension, Event Related Potentials (ERP), as one of the methods used for measuring brain activity, allows researchers to observe reading-related brain processes and can document neural patterns at the millisecond level. This study aimed at examining item discrimination of the reading comprehension section of the IELTS exam through ERP. With a sample of 10 participants holding the band scores from 6 to 8, the reading comprehension items of a retired version of IELTS were given to the test takers as the task or the stimulus. It was found out that there is a mismatch between the proposed category of difficulty given for the reading comprehension item types and ERP evidence.

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