The Effect of Placing Test Items in Different Positions in Listening Comprehension Tests: The Case of Unity College

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2001-06

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An experiment was conducted to explore the effect of placing test items in different positions in listening comprehension tests. In this experiment three groups were made to view listening comprehension test items in three different positions. The first group viewed these items before two listenings while the second one viewed them after two Iistenings. The third group, on the other hand, viewed the questions between two listenings. First, Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) was used to divide the testees in to three groups which had comparable listening abilities. The data obtained from this standardized test was analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The result then showed that the three gro ups were comparable in their listening abilities. After this was done, a test prepared for College English students by the Department of Foreign Languages and Literature at Addis Ababa University was administered to investigate the mentioned treatments. To accept or reject the null hypothesis which stated that placing test items in different positions in a listening comprehension test has no effect on the testees' performance, a one-way ANOVA was employed. The AN OVA, then detected a significant mean ditlerence in scores across the three approaches. The calculated value of F (F=8-440 with degrees of freedom 2 and 132) exceeded the value of F tabulated at .05 probability level set for this study. As a result, the null hypothesis mentioned above was rejected. The Scheffs posthoc comparison of means also helped to locate the direction of the difference. The result of this test, thus, showed that the 'Sandwich group' produced significantly higher scores in the listening comprehension test than did the 'After reading group' and the 'Before reading group'. On the other hand, these latter groups did not show a significant difference in their performances.

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Effect of Placing Test Items

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