Test-Taking Strategies In Summary Writing:Characteristics,Factors And Mechanisms

Summary writing has gradually gained popularity in some large-scale and highstakes English tests home and abroad such as TOEFL,TEM-4/8,NMET Shanghai version.However,researches on summary writing strategies have mainly focused on the “learning strategies”.Much under researched on summary writing strategies in the field of language assessment is the “test-taking strategies” which have been proved not identical to the “learning strategies”.Therefore,the present study aims to investigate the test-taking strategies adopted by test-takers,including both English majors(54)and Non-English majors(39),for fulfilling summary writing tasks under testing situation.Quantitative data and qualitative data were obtained through subjects’ summary writing,questionnaire and semi-structured interview.After analyzing and comparing the data through MANOVA,Correlation and Regression,their test-taking strategies were investigated from three main perspectives: firstly,their characteristics;secondly,influencing factors;thirdly,their impact mechanisms.Results show that differences do exist between these two groups in terms of their test-taking strategy use.For English majors,they employed more test-wiseness strategies and test management strategies in summary writing while Non-English majors employed more cognitive strategies and metacognitive strategies.What’s more,it is also found that not all test-taking strategies would be significantly influenced by factors like English proficiency and major.English proficiency mainly influenced subjects’ cognitive strategies and major mainly influenced cognitive strategies and testwiseness strategies.But subjects’ metacognitive strategies and test management strategies were not significantly influenced by either these two factors.Furthermore,subjects’ summary writing scores were not significantly influenced by all test-taking strategies,of which only cognitive strategies and test-wiseness strategies exerted significant influence on subjects’ summary writing scores.By comprehensively investigating subjects’ test-taking strategies in summary writing in terms of their characteristics,influencing factors and impact mechanisms,the present study helps to better understand the construct of test-taking strategies and their functions in summary writing.Besides,it would also shed some light on summary writing instruction and assessment.