A Study On The Dififculties With Banked Cloze Test Of College Students

As a variant of cloze test, banked cloze test has attracted more and moreattention by researchers in China. Since2006, banked cloze test has been taken as anew kind of test format in CET-4. At present, much research has been done on itsvalidity, and on sources and strategies testees employed in the test-taking process ofbanked cloze test. However, little research has ever focused the difficulties testeesencounter when taking banked cloze test and the sources that causes such difficulties.Therefore, the present study is quite necessary. Such research could help us tounderstand the abilities students required by such test and suggest for improving theirlearning as well.Based on Anderson’s cognitive theory of three-phase model, questionnairesurveys have been adopted for144non-English major sophomores to identifydifferent level students’ difficulties in banked cloze test and various factors causingstudents’ difficulties in the respective phase of perception, parsing and utilization.Accordingly, this study will focus to answer the following research questions:1) Inwhich phase, students actually have difficulties with banked cloze test, perception,parsing or utilization?2) Are there any differences in difficulties between high leveland low level students?3) What factors do students identify as affecting the difficultyof banked cloze test?By quantitative and qualitative data analysis, results show that1) Students are allhave difficulties in banked cloze test, among the three phases, students more oftenhave difficulties at the perception phase, than at the parsing phase and the utilizationphase, and their perception problems are more serious than the parsing and utilizing.2)In terms of different level students, the results have been found that low-levelstudents’ difficulties are mainly occurred in the perception phase, followed by theparsing and utilization phase, whereas high-level’s are majored in the parsing phase,then is the utilization and perception phase.3) As for factors influencing students’difficulties in banked cloze test, the results indicate that word recognition and noticingcontrol are the main causes of students’ difficulty in the perception phase; Theincapability of grammatical analysis is a major cause of students’ difficulty in the parsing phase; The lack of cognitive schema and stylistic knowledge are the maincauses of students’ difficulty in the utilization phase. Finally, tell the majorsuggestions for language teachers and students to improve students’ performance inbanked cloze test.