Measuring college students' reading comprehension ability using cloze tests |
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| Authors: | Rihana Shiri Williams Omer Ari Carmen Nicole Santamaria |
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| Institution: | 1. Department of Psychology, Georgia State University, USA;2. Department of Middle‐Secondary Education And Instructional Technology, Georgia State University, USA;3. School Psychology, College of Education, Georgia State University, USA |
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| Abstract: | Recent investigations challenge the construct validity of sustained silent reading tests. Performance of two groups of post‐secondary students (e.g. struggling and non‐struggling) on a sustained silent reading test and two types of cloze test (i.e. maze and open‐ended) was compared in order to identify the test format that contributes greater variance in reading comprehension. One hundred participants were recruited from students enrolled in a preparatory course for a high‐stakes statewide reading examination. Our results suggest that all three measures have good concurrent validity. There was no evidence that open‐ended cloze performance was more related to verbal ability than any other reading measure. Maze performance did the best job at discriminating between our struggling and non‐struggling readers. Implications for reading comprehension assessment in post secondary‐aged adults are discussed. |
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