Abstract :
A large number of studies were done on cloze tests in the field of language testing. Some studies invested linguistic and textual factors affecting cloze item difficulty. In Japan, multiple-choice (MC) cloze items are a widely used item format in entrance examinations and classroom tests. However, linguistic and textual factors affecting MC cloze items have not been fully investigated. Thus, this study was designed to examine linguistic and textual factors that affect a MC cloze test score. Two passages were selected and 50 MC cloze items (k = 50) were categorized into five groups: (a) content words, (b) function words, (c) low frequency words, (d) words highly used in a passage, and (e) phrasal words. The research questions were: (a) to what extent do the category and text factors contribute to the total MC cloze test score variance, and (b) to what extent is the MC cloze test reliable and dependable for making relative and absolute decisions. When a generalizability study was conducted, the largest amount of variance contributing to the total score variance was an interaction effect between items and texts facets. Reliability and dependability of the test were satisfactory. Implications drawn from this study were discussed.
