a non-traditional technique for testing vocabulary

7/28/2019 A Non-Traditional Technique for Testing Vocabulary

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A NONTRADITIONAL TECHNIQUEFOR TESTING VOCABULARY

Frederick A. Duffe/meyerIOWA STATE UNIVERSITY, AMES, IOWA

The close and very s ign i f ican t re la t ionship betweenknowledge of vocabulary and reading ab i l i t y has longbeen recognized (q .v . , Strang 1938, Davis 1944, Smith1950, Klare 1963, Davis 1972). Perhaps Strang expressedth i s re la t ionship most succinc t ly when she wrote:"Vocabulary i s l ike the warp threads running throughthe en t i re developmental reading program. I t i s pre-requ i s i t e to , as well as resu l t of, effec t ive reading."

Thus, a prime responsib i l i ty facing our schoolsi s del ibera te guidance in vocabulary growth. However,i ns t ruc t ion i s only one stage in the overa l l process.Teaching/learning ac t iv i t i e s should be followed byaccurate evaluat ion. Therefore , guidance in vocabularydevelopment includes l earning whether ins t ruc t ionhas resul ted in a c lear understanding of the wordss tudied.Perhaps the most e f f i c ien t way of evaluat ingwhether a s tudent knows the meaning of a se t of wordsi s to adminis ter a vocabulary t e s t . In a fami l ia rkind of t e s t the st imulus word i s to be matched withthe neares t synonym among four or f ive a l t e rna t ives .When a s tudent can make the proper match, he/she i scredited with understanding the word.Among the f i r s t to point out the shortcomingsof th i s method of t es t ing vocabulary was Cronbach(1943), who noted tha t the s tudent may know a def in i t ionverbal ly without having an ab i l i ty to apply it proper ly .He maintained tha t instead of requiring the s tudentto match one word with another word, a vocabularyt e s t should determine " . . . whether each word has meaningfo r the s tudent in l i f e s i tuat ions ... " (p . 528).Russel l (1954), who maintained tha tc r i t i c a l problem in t es t ing vocabulary i sunthinking verbal iza t ion, voiced a s imi la r

the mostt ha t ofopinion


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IBo-rhwhen he s t a t ed : "The di f f i cu l ty caused by manipulatingwords without much meaning at tached cannot be completelyovercome in any verbal r;roup t,pst,ing s i tua t ion , hut,it can bp met in par t by p] a d nr; words or concpptsin as meaningful a s i tua t ion as possible ... " (p. 325)

The views of Cronbach and Russel l are re f lec tedin a verbal reasoning t e s t developed by Cook e t a l(1963), cal led "Word-in-Context". For each word ona word l i s t t ha t the examinee c lass i f ies as "I havenever seen th i s word before and have no idea whatit means," the examinee i s given a se t of three contextsin descending order of di f f i cu l ty as a bas is for in f e r r ing a given word's meaning. After reading each context ,the examinee renders a verdic t on the meaning of theword. The authors remark tha t th i s method of te s t ingverbal reasoning " . . . provides a t e s t s i tua t ion whichi s s imi la r to , i f not iden t ica l with, a frequent lymet rea l l i f e s i tua t ion" (p. 228).

Ideas expressed by Russel l , Cronbach, and Cooke t a l are cons is tent with another long-recognizedre la t ionship-- the re la t ionship between experienceand word meaning; namely, t ha t meanings ar i se outof experience. From an ins t ruc t iona l s tandpoint t h i simpl ies tha t the meaning of a word i s made c lear byindica t ing an experience associated with i t . Fromthe aspect of evaluat ion, the fac t implies tha t i fa student c lear ly has the meaning of a word, he/ sheshould be able to associa te it with an experience.

The task cal led fo r on the t r ad i t iona l type ofvocabulary t e s t , i . e . , matching a word with a synonym,does not require the s tudent to associa te a word withan experience, and there in l i e s i t s grea tes t shortcoming. What i s needed i s a type of t e s t tha t requiresthe student to se l ec t a word fo r which a given s i tua t ionor expression of an idea i s appropriate . A task ofth i s sor t would correspond to what Cronbach (1942)elsewhere termed the "appl ica t ion" l eve l of word knowledge behavior - - the s tudent can "recognize t ha t ani l lu s t r a t ion of the word, as commonly employed, i sproper ly named by tha t word" (p. 207).The vocabulary- tes t ing technique which followswould seem to sa t i s fy t h i s s t ipu la t ion . Brief ly , itrequires the s tudent to match the descr ip t ion of as i tua t ion or the expression of an idea with a wordto which the s i tua t ion or idea al ludes . Since t h i stask di f f e r s ra ther s ign i f ican t ly from the usual task

of matching word with synonym, it may be referredto as a "non-t radi t ional" technique fo r vocabularyt e s t ing .


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r h - lB lSuppose you wanted to t e s t a s t ude n t ' s knowledgeof a se t of words t ha t inc luded the word " p re fe r " .A non- t r ad i t i ona l vocabulary t e s t i tem fo r "pre fe r "might resemble the fo l lowing:For some people a vacation means nothing morethan not having to go to work. For other peopIe, a vacation means going hundreds of milesaway from home. I f I had a choice betweenthe two, I 'd rather go somewhere.a) notice b) preferc) think d) realizeNote t h a t the word "p re fe r" doesthe paragraph. The s tude n t ' s t ask i sword to which the paragraph a l l udes .

not appear into se l e c t theIn cons t ruc t ing v iab le t e s t i tems of t h i s type ,the same guide l ines t ha t govern the cons t ruc t ion oft r ad i t i ona l t e s t i tems apply (see Seashore and Eckerson, 1940; Cureton, 1963; and Ebel , 1972). In add i t i on ,the teacher must be care fu l to fo rmula te a given pa r a graph, or "s tem", in such a way t ha t it a l l udes tothe key word only . Another impor tan t cons ide ra t ionin th----e-formulation of paragraphs i s t ha t they depic ts i tua t ions which are wi th in th e s tuden t s ' realm ofexper ience .The f a c t t h a t a paragraph context needs to beformulated fo r each word t ha t i s to be t e s t ed meanst h a t more teacher t ime (say 5-10 minutes more peri tem) would be involved than would be in cons t ruc t ingt r ad i t i ona l t e s t i tems. Certa in ly the t ime f a c t o rde t r a c t s from t h i s t e chn ique ' s appeal ; however, whenone cons iders the poten t ia l fo r minimizing s tude n t s 'disply of supe r f i c i a l knowledge, the add i t i ona l t imewould seem to be j u s t i f i e d .Addi t ional examples of non- t r a d i t i ona l vocabularyt e s t i tems are shown below:

Jim woke up very early in the morning. I t wass t i l l dark outside. That afternoon he andhis family were going to f ly across the oceanin a je t plane. Jim was looking forward tothe f l ight. He wished i t were time to go tothe airport .

a) t i redc) eager b) nervousd) thoughtful

When Mary arrived a t the party she could hardlybelieve her eyes. At one end of the room wasa long table covered with many kinds of salads,vegetables, meats, and desserts. She was hungrynow, but she wouldn't be hungry af ter the party.


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182 - rha) feastc) breakfast b) picnicd) snack

This method of t e s t ing vocabulary comes much( ) " r r t , ( ) r , ronh; ) rh ' ; . ,'lnd TI11:::;;.('11':::; idc3S of wh3t 3vocabulary t e s t should accomplish than the t r ad i t iona ltype of vocabulary t e s t , because it requi res the s tudentto assoc ia te the meaning of a word with a l i f e - l ikes i t ua t i on . As such it demands a f irm grasp of theconcept underlying a word, and therefore providesthe teacher with re l i ab le word knowledge informat ionneeded to move s tudents c loser to the ul t imate goalof using a word in r ea l - l i f e s i tua t ions .

REFERENCES

Cook, J . , A. Heim and K. Watts . "The Word-in-Context:A New Type of Verbal Reasoning Test" Br i t i shJourna l of Psychology. Vol. 54, N o . 3 (Aug. '63)pp. 227-237.Cronbach, Lee. "An Analysis of Techniques fo r DiagnosticVocabulary Testing" Journal of Educat ional ResearchVol. 36, N o . 3 (Nov. '42) pp. 206-217.Cronbach, Lee. "Measuring Knowledge of Precise WordMeaning." Journa l of Educational Research, Vol.36,N o . 7 (Mar. '43) pp. 528-534.Cureton, Edward. "Note on Vocabulary Test Const ruc t ion ."Educat ional and Psychological Measurement, Vol.23,N o . 3 , (Autumn '63) pp. 461-466.Davis, Freder ick. "Fundamental Factors of Comprehensionin Reading" Psychometrika, Vol. 9, N o . 3 (Sept . '44)pp. 185-197.Davis ,Freder ick . "Psychometric Research on Comprehensionin Reading" Reading Research Quarter ly , Vol.7, N o . 4 (Summer '72) pp. 628-678.Ebel ,Robert . Essen t i a l s of Educational Measurement.Englewood Cl i f f s , N.J. Prent ice-Hal l , I n c . , 1972.Klare, George. The Measurement of Readabi l i ty . Ames,Iowa: Iowa Sta te Univers i ty Press , 1963.Russe l l , David. The Dimensions of Chi ldren ' s MeaningVocabular ies . Berkeley: Univ. of Cal i f . Publ ica t ionVol. 11, N o . 5 (1954), pp. 315-414.Seashore ,Robert and Lois Eckerson. "The Measurementof Indiv idual Differences in English Vocabular ies"Journa l of Educational Psychology V 31 ,# l ( Jan ' 40)Smith, N.B. "Reading: Concept Development" Education

Vol. 70, N o . 9 (May '50) pp. 548-558.Strang, Ruth. Problems in the Improvement of ReadingLancas ter , PA: Science Press Prin t ing Co., 1938.

a non-traditional technique for testing vocabulary

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