The Relationship between Choice of Reading Strategies and Performance on Task-Based Language Tests

Journal of English Language Studies

مقاله 3، دوره 1، شماره 1، آذر 2009، صفحه 45-62   

نویسنده

Khalil Motallebzadeh

Assistant Professor of Islamic Azad University, Mashad and Torbateh Haydarieh Branches

چکیده

The purpose of this article was to investigate the relationship between students’ choice of reading strategies and their performance on task-based tests. Five hundred and eighty junior and senior undergraduate students of English translation and English literature and upper-intermediate students studying English in a number of private language schools took three tests: a TOEFL (PBT) reading subtest (used for homogenizing the subjects), a reading strategies inventory (Bang & Guanfang, 2007), and an IELTS reading subtest. The correlation analysis showed a direct relationship between scores on the TOEFL and IELTS indicating that both tests measured similar constructs. Moreover, the results indicated that the test-takers benefited a variety of reading strategies while taking language proficiency tests. The findings also demonstrated that test-takers employed ‘after reading strategies’ more frequently than ‘while reading strategies’, taking IELTS as a task-based test. Finally, the findings revealed a significant correlation between participants’ scores on the IELTS reading comprehension section and two of the reading strategies, i.e. ‘remember the content of the text’ and ‘when encountering difficulty’ strategies. Thus, this study supported the results of the study by Cohen and Pinilla-Herrea (2009) on the correlation between tasks on a test and the learners’ strategy repertoire.

کلیدواژه‌ها

task-based language test؛ IELTS؛ TOEFL؛ reading strategies