Cloze & dictation tests

Mohammed PazhouheshKhayyam University of Mashhad

Farhangian University of Mashhad, Beheshti Campus

CLOZE TEST:Rationale & Varieties

Cloze procedure

Pragmatic Testing

Khayyam IUniversityMohd. Pazhouhesh

Advantages of DP testsGood for diagnostic purposes and developing

remedial materials in educational programs

Desirable psychometric characteristics of validity & reliability

Highly practical in administration and scoring procedure

Mohd. Pazhouhesh Khayyam Institute

Threats to DP TestsDivisibility of language competence into skills,

subskills, components and subcomponents for measuring them separately

Incapability for measuring overall communicative language ability

Additive vs discrete notion of language processing in Gestalt psychology

Khayyam InstituteMohd. Pazhouhesh

Cloze ProcedureCloze: A coined word to represent “closure” in

Gestalt PsychologyGestalt : A pattern, a configuration, a figure and a

background. Gestalt psychology: an approach in psychology

which describes how our perceptions are organized in figure/ground pairs.


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Basic premise of Gestalt psychologyHumans are not passive receivers of sensory

information. Our perceptions are active, lively, and organized

We actively organize perceptions into coherent wholes – today the process is referred to as top-down or conceptually driven processing.

The whole influences the way parts are perceived.

Perception causes sensory data to form a holistic pattern or Gestaltien.

The whole is different from the sum of the parts.

Law of Closure

Objects grouped together are seen as a whole.We tend to ignore gaps and complete contour

ones. In the images above, there are no triangles or circles, but our minds fill in the missing information to create familiar shapes and images.


Law of Closure

Law of Similarity


Law of Pregnanz

Khayyam Institute

Law of Proximity

Law of Continuity

Closure and Cloze Application of closure law to language processingFocus on holistic language ability in the absence of

some parts (blanks)Measuring comprehension through passages

containing some closures or blanksCloze as an alternative to traditional reading

comprehension test (Tylor)Cloze as an indicator of general reading ability and

language processing(efficiency in using grammatical processes to restore the missing parts in a text)


Cloze ProcedureDefinition: As a diagnostic reading assessment, cloze procedure

refers to any reading passage of appropriate length and difficulty with every nth word deleted.

How to determine value of “n” Ranging from 2 to 10. 7 as the most appropriate value for “n”

How to determine length 220 to 250 words with every 7th word deleted

How to determine passage difficulty Applying readability formulas

# of words # of polysyllable wordsReadability = —————— + (————----------————) 40 # of sentences # of words


Varieties of Cloze ProcedureBased on psycholinguistic processing

1. Production Type tests • Open-ended standard cloze tests

2. Comprehension Type Cloze Tests• Closed-ended multiple choice cloze tests

Based on item modalityo Oral Type o Written Type

Based on teaching & testing purposeso Fill-in-the blanko Fixed-ratio deletion cloze


Varieties of Cloze ProcedureRandom-ratio deletion clozeStratified random deletion clozeCatered-technique cloze

Education has two purposes. First, education provides tools so that w__ can earn a living. Some of t__es__ tools are basic tools, such as r__ad__ng and writing. Others are technical skills s__c__ as typing, accounting, and data processing. S__m__ others are highly professional skills peculiar, f__ __ example, to medicine, to law, and t__ teaching. Secondly, education provides experience so t__ __t we can learn how to live. E_ _ _ provides a background of ideas for u__in__ the past. It provides a sense of values for meeting the future.


Varieties of Cloze ProcedureCloze-elide / editing testEducation has two goals. First, it provides very means so that we

may earn the our living. Some of these tools are actual main tools, such as reading or writing. Others may are technical skills, such as typing, quite accounting, and data processing. Still others are would highly professional skills peculiar, for example, to such medicine, to science, and to teaching. Secondly, it is provides experience so that we can learn the how to live. Education provides knowledge that of ideas for using the past. It after provides a sense of values for the meeting the future.

Standard DictationPartial dictationElicited imitationDicto-CompDictation with noise


Advantages and disadvantages AdvantagesEasy to construct, Easy to administer Easy to score.Disadvantagesnot possible to predict accurately people’s

abilities with respect to separate skills. need for careful selection of texts and some

pretesting.Inability to tell us about oral ability.

Is the red dot inside or outside the box