Research Into Effects Of Cultural Schemata On Students' Cloze Test-Taking Processes

Cloze test-taking process is a cognitive activity. A well-disigned cloze test can measure both lower (eg. Clause-level) and higher level (intersentential) reading ability, which can be explained by schemata theory. The present study investigated how schemata activated by culturally familiar words might have influenced students' cloze test-taking processes. Sixty Chinese first-year university students (12 males and 48 females) majoring in English at Wuhan University of Science and Technology were divided into two groups with equivalent English reading proficiency. They completed either a culturally familiar or an unfamiliar version of a cloze test. Partially replicating Chihara et al.'s (1989) and Miyuki Sasaki's (2000) experiment, several unfamiliar words in the original cloze test passage were changed to more familiar ones in the modified version. Unlike in Chihara et al. (1989) and Miyuki Sasaki's (2000), however, students were asked to give written reports of their test-taking processes, and to recall the passage after they had completed the tests. Thus, the two groups' test-taking activities were compared in terms of: 1) item performance;2) expressing correct understanding of the key terms while solving the items and recalling;3) the amount of text information they used to complete the items;and 4) the quantities and qualities of the final recalls.Results demonstrated that those who read the culturally familiar cloze text tried to solve more items and generally understood the text better, which resulted in better performances than those of the students who read the original text. This study has two implications for second language testing. First, the finding that participants sometimes do use information beyond the sentence level for solving items confirms the claim that cloze tests can measure higher-order processing skills. Second, the study results show that cultural schemata do have effect on Chinese students EFL cloze test taking;therefore, cloze test developers should take potential cultural obstacles into consideration when selecting appropriate texts. Similarly, the research results contribute to English teachers as well as English learners in that they should teach or learn the culture of that people if they want to master their language.