Explore the vast range of titles available.

The objective of this research was to derive evidence of validity through the response process, through the analysis of the types of errors made by students, in a Cloze test and to analyze the difficulty of their items through morph syntactic analysis. For this research participated 593 elementary school students from de sixth to ninth grades from public schools. Two groups of protocols were formed, one with the children with the highest averages and the other with the lowest averages. The results showed that children with higher averages made more syntactic errors and those with lower averages made semantic errors. The assessment of homogeneity in the distribution of types of errors allowed us to find evidence of validity by the response process. The total numbers of grammatical classes found through morph syntactic analysis gave the text a balance regarding the difficulty of recovering words, indicating its use to measure reading comprehension.

The purpose of this study was to validate the cloze test among Iraqi EFL university students. To this end, two types of multiple-choice cloze tests were administered to a sample of EFL students along with a number of other tests as criteria. Correlational analyses revealed moderate to strong correlations between the cloze tests and the criterion measures. Principal components analysis resulted in a one-factor solution with the cloze tests highly loading on this single factor. These findings were interpreted as validity evidence for the cloze test. Implication of the study for classroom testing was discussed.

This study investigated Korean-English second language (L2) speakers’ recognition of high- and low-frequency English words and compared two individual difference measures in their role of representing lexical quality in L2: cloze test scores and inverse efficiency scores (IES; response latency corrected for the amount of errors committed), obtained from lexical decision on a separate set of words. Cloze test scores aimed to assess general L2 proficiency, whereas IES was purported to measure lexical processing efficiency. 109 adult Korean-English L2 speakers participated in the study. Results showed significant main effects of word frequency, cloze test scores, and IES on lexical decision times, replicating previous findings and confirming the predictions of the lexical quality hypothesis. Crucially, IES was revealed to be a better measure of individual differences in L2 lexical quality than were cloze test scores. These findings suggest that lexical quality (which can be operationalized in terms of online lexical processing efficiency) comprises a distinct subdomain of language skills on its own, which cannot be measured in full using conventional language proficiency tests.

ABSTRACT The hypothesis of this study is based on the fact that a remediation program with the Cloze Technique, leveled by different degrees of difficulties, it can contribute to the development of reading comprehension of students with reading comprehension difficulties. Therefore, the objective was to develop this program and analyze the clinical significance. For this, an intervention program was developed through a bibliographic review and after that a pilot study was carried out and applied in 28 elementary school students, divided into Group I Experimental (students with difficulty in narrative text submitted to the intervention); Group I Control (students with difficulty in narrative text not submitted to the intervention); Group II Experimental (students with difficulty in expository text submitted to the intervention); Group II Control (students with difficulty in expository text not submitted to the intervention). The results analyzed by the JT Method showed a reliable positive change with clinical significance for students in Group I Study, and significantly for students in Group II Experimental. RESUMEN La hipótesis de este estudio está centrada en el hecho de que un programa de remediar con la Técnica de Cloze, nivelado por distintos grados de dificultades, puede contribuir para el desarrollo de la comprensión lectora de escolares con dificultades de comprensión lectora. Por eso, se tuvo por objetivo elaborar este programa y analizar la significancia clínica. Para ello, se elaboró un programa de intervención por intermedio de una revisión bibliográfica y después se realizó un estudio piloto y aplicado en 28 escolares enseñanza básica I, divididos en Grupo I Estudio (escolares con dificultad en texto narrativo sometidos a la intervención); Grupo I Control (escolares con dificultad en texto narrativo no sometidos a la intervención); Grupo II Estudio (escolares con dificultad en texto expositivo sometidos a la intervención); Grupo II Control (escolares con dificultad en texto expositivo no sometidos a la intervención). Los resultados analizados por el Método JT apuntaran cambio fiable positivo y con significancia clínica para escolares del Grupo I Estudio, y de forma significativa para escolares del Grupo II Estudio. RESUMO A hipótese deste estudo está pautada no fato de que um programa de remediação com a Técnica de Cloze, nivelado por diferentes graus de dificuldades, pode contribuir para o desenvolvimento da compreensão leitora de escolares com dificuldades de compreensão leitora. Sendo assim, objetivou-se elaborar este programa e analisar a significância clínica. Para isto, elaborou-se um programa de intervenção por meio de uma revisão bibliográfica e após foi realizado um estudo piloto e aplicado em 28 escolares ensino fundamental I, divididos em Grupo I Estudo (escolares com dificuldade em texto narrativo submetidos à intervenção); Grupo I Controle (escolares com dificuldade em texto narrativo não submetidos à intervenção); Grupo II Estudo (escolares com dificuldade em texto expositivo submetidos à intervenção); Grupo II Controle (escolares com dificuldade em texto expositivo não submetidos à intervenção). Os resultados analisados pelo Método JT apontaram mudança confiável positiva e com significância clínica para escolares do Grupo I Estudo, e de forma significativa para escolares do Grupo II Estudo.

Several studies on heritage language (HL) acquisition investigate a single linguistic structure, showing how language exposure or cross-linguistic effects affect its acquisition. Here, we consider HL speaking children's mastery of several linguistic structures using a cloze-test. We examine how their language competence is affected by language exposure variables and age. We tested 180 children between the ages of 8 and 16, living in Switzerland and speaking European Portuguese as HL and French, German or Italian as their societal language. The items of the cloze-test cluster around two levels of difficulty, with the items at the second level corresponding to structures that are acquired late in Portuguese monolingual acquisition. Older age and a greater amount of formal instruction in the HL lead to better performance. The role of the amount of formal instruction varies based on the level of difficulty of the target structures. Cross-linguistic influence does not affect the results.

The deep cloze test was developed by Jensen and Elbro (Read Writ Interdiscip J 35(5):1221–1237, 2022. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-021-10230-w ) to assess reading comprehension at the level of global situational understanding. In two independent studies, we examined potential contributors to students’ scores on the deep cloze reading comprehension test, as well as the predictability of students’ scores on this measure for their course achievement and integrated text understanding measured with an open-ended written comprehension assessment. Results showed that students’ language background, word recognition skills, and working memory resources explained unique portions of the variance in students’ scores on the deep cloze reading comprehension test. Further, scores on this test were positively correlated with students’ course achievement and uniquely predicted their integrated text understanding when language background, working memory, and prior topic knowledge were controlled for. Taken together, our findings support an interpretation of the deep cloze reading comprehension test as an effective and efficient measure of situation level understanding that draws on language skills, word level processes, and working memory resources and also can be used to predict students’ performance on important criterial tasks requiring deeper level understanding.

Traditional cloze tests (such as the CBM-maze) may be poor measures of comprehension processes beyond the single sentence level. This paper presents an alternative, a deep cloze test with gaps that are strategically chosen to assess comprehension beyond the sentence level. To fill each gap, the reader has to draw global cohesion inferences during reading. A study with 83 adult students found support for the validity of the deep cloze test. It contributed unique variance to global reading comprehension as measured with a conventional test even after controlling for sentence-level cloze, word decoding, and vocabulary knowledge. The deep cloze also explained all of the shared variance between reading comprehension and a topic identification task designed to require global comprehension. Future studies may explore how the deep cloze format can be used to tap other component processes of reading comprehension.

The increasing demand for scalable and fair assessment of open-form responses in digital education shows the need for intelligent grading systems capable of balancing syntactic precision with semantic understanding. This study proposes a hybrid semantic–syntactic NLP framework for automated grading of short-answer and cloze-type questions. The framework integrates a rule-based matcher for syntactic accuracy, MPNet (Masked and Permuted Pre-trained Network) embeddings for semantic similarity, and a fine-tuned DeBERTa (Decoding-enhanced Bidirectional Encoder Representations from Transformer with Disentangled Attention) regressor for continuous score prediction, while a T5-small model provides pedagogically aligned feedback generation. Evaluations were conducted using benchmark corpora, synthetic cloze datasets, and a domain-specific short-answer corpus. Results demonstrate that the hybrid system outperforms traditional baselines, achieving 91% accuracy, a 0.89 F1 score, a mean absolute error of 0.36, and strong inter-rater agreement (κ = 0.87), aligning closely with human graders. Qualitative analyses show that the framework successfully recognizes paraphrased responses, assigns partial credit, and generates meaningful feedback. Ablation studies further validate the necessity of each subsystem, with performance significantly declining when components were removed. The findings confirm that the proposed framework is both computationally robust and pedagogically valuable, establishing a foundation for scalable, interpretable, and fair automated grading in contemporary educational environments.

This study, conducted as correlational research, aims to objectively examine the validity of cloze tests in Turkish, which are commonly used to assess reading comprehension levels, general language proficiency, and the readability of written materials, and to evaluate the procedures for using these tests to measure reading comprehension. The study investigates the consistency between multiple-choice reading comprehension tests, frequently used in national exams for their functionality and objectivity, and cloze tests designed and scored using various methods. During the study, a total of eight measurement tools were administered to a sample group of 90 seventh-grade students. These tools consisted of four multiple-choice reading comprehension tests based on four distinct texts and four cloze tests, each systematically deleting a word at a different position within the text. Two scoring methods were applied to the cloze tests, one considering only the exact words as correct and the other accepting alternative words that preserved the meaning of the sentence. Within this scope, approximately 23,000 test items were presented to the students in the study group, and around 43,000 evaluations were conducted on these items. Data collected during the 2023-2024 academic year were analyzed using Pearson correlation analysis, revealing a significant positive relationship between cloze tests and multiple-choice tests. Tests scored by considering only the exact words demonstrated greater consistency, while the correlation decreased when context-preserving alternatives were accepted as correct. The highest correlation occurred when every sixth word was systematically deleted. Based on the findings, it is recommended that in cloze tests, exact words should be accepted as correct instead of context-preserving words, every 6th word should be systematically deleted, and the tests should be systematically integrated into measurement and evaluation practices. Bireylerin okuduğunu anlama düzeyini, genel anlamda dil becerisini ve yazılı materyallerin okunabilirliğini ölçmek gibi birçok amaç için kullanılan boşluk tamamlama testlerinin Türkçe için geçerli sonuçlar verip vermediğini nesnel bir düzlemde sorgulamak ve testlerin okuduğunu anlama düzeyinin ölçümünde kullanımına yönelik işe koşulan prosedürleri test etmek amacıyla yürütülen bu çalışma, korelasyonel bir araştırmadır. Bu kapsamda işlevselliği ve nesnelliği dolayısıyla okuduğunu anlama düzeyinin ölçümünde oldukça sık kullanılan ve ulusal sınavlarda başat ölçme aracı konumundaki çoktan seçmeli testler ile farklı prosedürler izlenerek oluşturulmuş ve puanlanmış boşluk tamamlama testleri arasındaki tutarlılık incelenmiştir. İnceleme sürecinde 4 farklı metne yönelik 4 çoktan seçmeli okuduğunu anlama testi ve her birinde farklı sıradaki bir sözcüğün düzenli şekilde silindiği 4 boşluk tamamlama testi olmak üzere 8 farklı ölçme aracı, 7. sınıf düzeyindeki öğrencilerden oluşan 90 kişilik çalışma grubuna uygulanmıştır. Boşluk tamamlama testlerinin puanlanmasında, birincisi orijinal sözcüklerin doğru kabul edildiği, ikincisi bağlamı yani cümlenin anlamını koruyan sözcüklerin doğru kabul edildiği iki farklı puanlama yöntemi kullanılmıştır. Bu kapsamda çalışma grubunda yer alan öğrencilere yaklaşık 23.000 soru maddesi sunulmuş, bu maddeler üzerinde yaklaşık 43.000 değerlendirme yapılmıştır. 2023-2024 eğitim öğretim döneminde yüz yüze elde edilen veriler üzerinde Pearson korelasyon analizi gerçekleştirilmiştir. Yapılan analizlere göre; genel olarak boşluk tamamlama testleri ile çoktan seçmeli okuduğunu anlama testleri arasında anlamlı ve pozitif bir ilişki olduğu, orijinal kelimelerin doğru kabul edildiği boşluk tamamlama testlerinin çoktan seçmeli okuduğunu anlama testleri ile daha tutarlı sonuçlar verdiği, bağlamı koruyan sözcüklerin doğru kabul edildiği durumlarda bu korelasyonun genellikle azaldığı ve çoktan seçmeli okuduğunu anlama testleri ile boşluk tamamlama testleri arasında en yüksek düzeyde korelasyonun düzenli olarak 6. sıradaki sözcüğün silindiği durumlarda elde edildiği sonuçlarına ulaşılmıştır. Ulaşılan sonuçlardan hareketle boşluk tamamlama testlerinde bağlamı koruyan sözcüklerden ziyade orijinal sözcüklerin doğru kabul edilmesi, düzenli olarak 6. sözcüğün silinmesi ve testlerin sistematik bir şekilde ölçme değerlendirme faaliyetlerine dâhil edilmesi şeklinde önerilerde bulunulmuştur.

The transition from paper-based tests to corresponding computer-administered tests allows for the incorporation of improved interfaces that support response making. The main research question is whether innovative interfaces affect test response time and/or response accuracy. This study compared performance on banked cloze tests using a conventional interface (based on paper-based formats for responding by writing a number in a box) versus cloze tests with improved interfaces (based on computer-based affordances such as dragging and dropping responses to fill in a blank). In a banked cloze test, the left side of the page shows a text with words deleted and replaced with blanks that are numbered, and the right side shows the word list with a space to write in the corresponding number. In Experiment 1, 56 fourth graders in the conventional group responded more slowly but just as accurately, and spent more time looking at the word list on the right of the screen but spent equivalent time looking at the text as compared to a group that took the test with an improved interface. In Experiment 2, the same pattern of results was replicated with 148 sixth graders and for each of three versions of improved interfaces as compared to the conventional interface. Results support the idea that the improved interface affected the response execution phase but not the response development phase of performance on the cloze test.