'I want to go back to the text': Response Strategies on the Reading Subtest of the New TOEFL

Abstract

This study describes the reading and test-taking strategies that test takers used on the ‘Reading’ section of the LanguEdge Courseware (2002) materials developed to familiarize prospective respondents with the new TOEFL. The investigation focused on strategies used to respond to more traditional ‘single selection’ multiple-choice formats (i.e., Basic Comprehension and Inferencing questions) and the new selected-response (multiple selection, drag-and-drop) Reading to Learn items. The latter were designed to simulate the academic skill of forming a comprehensive and coherent representation of an entire text, rather than focusing on discrete points in the text. Verbal report data were collected from 32 students, representing four language groups (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and ‘Other’) doing the Reading section tasks from the LanguEdge Courseware materials. Students were randomly assigned to two of the six reading subtests, each consisting of a 600–700 word text with 12–13 items, and subjects’ verbal reports accompanying items representing each of the ten item types were evaluated to determine strategy use. The findings provide insights into the response behaviors prompted by the reading tasks on the new TOEFL.