MULTIPLE-CHOICE AND CLOZE TESTS: WHAT DO THEY REALLY MEASURE?

Resumo

The objective of this article is to show the results of a MA research carried out from july 1995 to august 1996. The aim was to find out what mental process(es) a testee goes through, while taking a multiple-choice and cloze test, in order to arrive at a correct answer. Cohen (1984:70-1) states that “there is a small but growing literature on how students go through the process of taking language tests.” Very little has been done in the field of language testing and even less has been done in second-language testing. The conclusions reached in this research is just a tiny light at the end of a long tunnel which can bring insights for further research in this area.