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Analyzing and Comparing Reading

Stimulus Materials Across theTOEFL®

Family of Assessments

June 2015

TOEFL iBT

Research Report

TOEFL iBT-26

ETS Research Report No. RR-15-08

Jing Chen

Kathleen M. Sheehan

?eTOEFL

test was developed in 1963 by the National Council on the Testing of English as a Foreign Language. ?e Council was

formed through the cooperative e?ort of more than 30 public and private organizations concerned with testing the English pro?ciency

of nonnative speakers of the language applying for admission to institutions in the United States. In 1965, Educational Testing Service

(ETS) and the College Board assumed joint responsibility for the program. In 1973, a cooperative arrangement for the operation of the

program was entered into by ETS, the College Board, and theGraduate Record Examinations (GRE )Board. ?e membership of the

College Board is composed of schools, colleges, school systems, and educational associations; GRE Board members are associated with

graduate education. ?e test is now wholly owned and operated by ETS.

ETS administers the TOEFL program under the general direction ofa policy board that was established by, and is a?liated with, the

sponsoring organizations. Members of the TOEFL Board (previously the Policy Council) represent the College Board, the GRE Board,

and such institutions and agencies as graduate schools of business,two-year colleges, and nonpro?t educational exchange agencies.

Since its inception in 1963, the TOEFL has evolved from a paper-based test to a computer-based test and, in 2005, to an Internet-based

test, theTOEFL iBT

test. One constant throughout this evolution has been a continuing program of research related to the TOEFL

test. From 1977 to 2005, nearly 100 research l reports on the early versions of TOEFL were published. In 1997, a monograph series that

laid the groundwork for the development of TOEFL iBT was launched. With the release of TOEFL iBT, a TOEFL iBT report series has

been introduced.

sentatives of the TOEFL Board and distinguished English as a second language specialists from academia. ?e committee advises the

TOEFL program about research needs and, through the research subcommittee, solicits, reviews, and approves proposals for funding

and reports for publication. Members of the TOEFL COE serve 4-year terms at the invitation of the Board; the chair of the committee

serves on the Board.

Current (2014-2015) members of the TOEFL COE are:

Sara Weigle - Chair

Yuko Goto Butler

Sheila Embleson

Luke Harding

Eunice Eunhee Jang

Marianne Nikolov

Lia Plakans

James Purpura

John Read

Carsten Roever

Diane Schmitt

Paula WinkeGeorgia State University

University of Pennsylvania

York University

Lancaster University

University of Toronto

University of Pécs

University of Iowa

Teachers College, Columbia University

?e University of Auckland ?e University of Melbourne

Nottingham Trent University

Michigan State University

To obtain more information about the TOEFL programs and services, use one of the following:

E-mail: toe?@ets.org

Web site:

www.ets.org/toe ETS is an Equal Opportunity/A?rmative Action Employer.

As part of its educational and social mission and in ful?lling the organization"s nonpro?t Charter and Bylaws, ETS has and continues

to learn from and to lead research that furthers educational and measurement research to advance quality and equity in education and

assessment for all users of the organization"s products and services.

No part of this report may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photo-

copy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Violators will be

prosecuted in accordance with both U.S. and international copyright laws. TOEFL iBT Research Report Series and ETS Research Report Series ISSN 2330-8516

RESEARCH REPORT

Analyzing and Comparing Reading Stimulus Materials

Across theTOEFL®Family of Assessments

Jing Chen & Kathleen M. Sheehan

Educational Testing Service, Princeton, NJ

?eTOEFL familyofassessmentsincludestheTOEFL

Primary

,TOEFLJunior ,andTOEFLiBT tests.?elinguisticcomplexity

of stimulus passages in the reading sections of the TOEFL family of assessments is expected to di?er across the test levels. ?is study

evaluates the linguistic complexity of each passage in a corpus of TOEFL stimulus passages. ?e analysis was conducted using the

TextEvaluator

TextEvaluator provides an overall complexity score and 8 component scores that measure text complexity in speci?c domains. ?e

to some aspects of text variation and distinct with respect to others. Score ranges based on the distributions of the overall complexity

scores and the distributions of the component scores of all the passages at each test level can be used as guidelines to develop or select

new passages. KeywordsTextEvaluator; TOEFL family of assessments; text analysis system; text complexity doi:10.1002/ets2.12055 ?eTOEFL familyofassessmentsincludestheTOEFL

Primary

,TOEFLJunior ,andTOEFLiBT tests.?eTOEFL

Primary test and the TOEFL Junior test are targeted at elementary school and middle school students, respectively. ?e

TOEFL iBT test is targeted at high school and university-aged students. ?e linguistic complexity of stimulus passages in

the reading section of the TOEFL family of assessments is expected to di?er across the test levels. Reading di?culty is

1998; Perfetti, Wlotko, & Hart, 2005). ?e linguistic complexity of a text has a large impact on reading comprehension

(Barrot,2013; Fulcher,1997). Linguisticcomplexity isde?nedas"theamountofdiscourse(oralorwritten),thetypesand

variety ofgrammaticalstructures,theorganizationandcohesionof ideas and, at thehigher levels oflanguage pro?ciency,

the use of text structures in speci?c genres" (Gottlieb, Cranley, & Cammilleri, 2007, p. 46). For instance, complex vocab-

ulary and grammatical structure will make it more di?cult to understand a reading passage. Similarly, less organized

and coherent ideas in a reading passage will make it di?cult to understand the passage. We note that reading di?culty is

determined not only by textual features but also by individual di?erences in readers. However, in this study we focus only

on evaluation of the linguistic complexity of the TOEFL passages.

?is paper evaluates the linguistic complexity of each passage in a corpus of TOEFL stimulus passages usingTextEval-

uator 1

analysis system developed at Educational Testing Service (ETS). TextEvaluator provides an overall linguistics complexity

score for each TOEFL reading passage and eight component scores that measure the complexity in speci?c domains (e.g.,

vocabulary di?culty). As the test level increases from TOEFL Primary to TOEFL iBT, we should expect the TOEFL read-

ing passages to be more and more complex. ?erefore, in general, reading passages at TOEFL Primary, TOEFL Junior,

and TOEFL iBT levels should have increasing linguistic complexity scores as evaluated by TextEvaluator.

?e linguistic complexity scores from TextEvaluator are useful in three ways: (a) helping TOEFL researchers and test

developers understand similarities and di?erences among the linguistic features of passages developed for use on dif-

ferent TOEFL family assessments; (b) helping TOEFL test developers take advantage of that knowledge when selecting,

Corresponding author: J. Chen, E-mail: jchen003@ets.org

TOEFL iBT Research Report No.26 and ETS Research Report Series No. RR-15-08. © 2015 Educational Testing Service1

J. Chen & K. M. SheehanAnalyzing and Comparing Reading Stimulus Materials

We emphasize that the complexity scores provided by TextEvaluator are only used to check or con?rm whether a

reading passage is placed at an appropriate level, in addition to test developers" judgment. ?e complexity scores should

not be used as the only or main evaluation criterion to determine the test level of a reading passage, since linguistic

complexity is not the only factor that determines the appropriateness of reading passages to be used at a particular test

level. When the complexity score from TextEvaluator indicates that a passage is too easy or too di?cult for a particular

test level, test developers should use this information only with other evaluation criteria to determine whether individual

passages are more or less appropriately structured for use at a particular test level.

?is study was guided by the following research questions: What is the range of linguistic complexity observed across

passages at each level (i.e., TOEFL Primary, TOEFL Junior, and TOEFL iBT) and what is the range of the component

scores observed across passages at each level?

Reading Passages in TOEFL Assessments

?e TOEFL Primary test assesses three skills: reading, listening, and speaking. Both the TOEFL Junior and the TOEFL

iBT assess four skills: reading, listening, speaking, and writing. Reading is a part of the test across all TOEFL family

assessments.

In the TOEFL Primary test, the reading section is around 30 minutes long. Students have reading tasks in two formats:

phrases. ?ese are not included in our analysis because TextEvaluator is designed to analyze the reading di?culty of a

text passage rather than that of a single word or sentence. Only passages used in the reading sets format are included in

this study. ?e reading sets passages range in length from 50 to 250 words. ?e types of the passages include academic

reading, short reading, and narrative reading. Each type is explained below. •Academic reading: A short informational text about a particular subject. •Short reading: A brief message, such as a note or announcement. •Narrative reading: A short narrative passage that tells a story.

In the TOEFL Junior test, the reading part takes 50 minutes, and students read three to four passages followed by 9-12

selected response questions about each passage. ?e passages range in length from 150 to 500 words. Passages include

a number of di?erent text types and are either academic or nonacademic (e.g., news articles or e-mails) in nature. ?e

TOEFL Junior reading passages include the following text types:

•Expository: Material that describes events or processes objectively, categorizes information, explains situations, or

presents solutions to problems.

•Biographical: Material that presents the important details of and in?uential moments in the life of a famous

individual.

•Persuasive: Material that presents an opinion, provides evidence in support of that opinion, and may attempt to

convince the reader of the correctness of a certain point of view. information about the event interspersed with quotations. •Fiction: Material that tells a story in narrative form.

•Graphic presentation of information.

2 Material that presents information in nonlinear form. Examples include schedules, advertising brochures, and bulleted announcements.

•Correspondence: Material that presents a message intended for a speci?c audience, either formally in the form of a

business letter or e-mail, or informally in the form of a memo, friendly letter, or friendly e-mail.

In the TOEFL iBT test, the reading section takes 60-80 minutes, during which examinees read three to ?ve passages

600 to 900 words. ?e TOEFL iBT reading passages are taken from university-level textbooks that introduce a discipline

or topic. ?e passages cover a variety of di?erent subjects and can be classi?ed into three basic categories:

•Exposition: Material that provides an explanation of a topic.

•Argumentation: Material that presents a point of view about a topic and provides evidence to support it.

•Historical: Material that introduces the history of a topic.

2TOEFL iBT Research Report No.26 and ETS Research Report Series No. RR-15-08. © 2015 Educational Testing Service

J. Chen & K. M. SheehanAnalyzing and Comparing Reading Stimulus Materials Collecting Validity Evidence for TOEFL Reading Assessments

Enright and Tyson (2011) laid out the validity argument for the TOEFL iBT test by stating propositions that underlie the

proposed test score interpretation and use and by summarizing the evidence relevant to six propositions. For instance,

(p. 3).Previousstudieshaveprovidedevidenceforvalidityrelevanttothisproposition.ChoandBridgeman(2012)found

that TOEFL iBT scores provided information about the future academic performance of nonnative English-speaking

students beyond that provided by other admissions tests. ?ey argued that the reading and writing skills assessed in the

TOEFL iBT provide unique information that could not be obtained from the other admissions tests such as the SAT

and theGRE

test. Another proposition is that "academic language pro?ciency is revealed by the linguistic knowledge,

processes, and strategies test takers use to respond to test tasks" (Enright & Tyson, p. 3). For instance, Cohen and Upton

did not rely on "test wiseness" strategies. Instead, Cohen and Upton found that test-taker strategies "re?ect the fact that

respondents were in actuality engaged with the reading test tasks in the manner desired by the test designers" (p. 105).

?is study also aims to collect validity evidence for TOEFL reading assessments. One proposition stated in Enright

and Tyson"s (2011) validity argument is that the content of the TOEFL iBT test is relevant to and representative of the

kinds of tasks and written and oral texts that students encounter in college and university settings. Similarly, the content

that were selected to be representative of the readings used at di?erent US grade levels in the Common Core State Stan-

dards forEnglish language arts (ELA; CommonCore State StandardsInitiative,2010). ?erefore, TextEvaluatorevaluates

whether a reading is representative of the readings that students encounter in K-12 schools in United States.

An Introduction to TextEvaluator

Evaluating TOEFL Text Complexity Using TextEvaluator

?e TextEvaluator scoring engine was described by Sheehan et al. (2013). In the current version of TextEvluator, eight

component scores that measure text complexity in di?erent domains are used as predictors in linear regression mod-

els to predict human judgments of text complexity. Each component score is estimated via clusters of correlated text

features extracted using natural language processing (NLP) techniques. Previous research has demonstrated that TextE-

that TextEvaluator provided ratings of source material comparable to ratings from human raters, which suggested that

TextEvaluator was successful in capturing useful information about the characteristics of texts. Nelson, Perfetti, Liben,

and Liben"s study (2011) con?rmed that the complexity scores obtained via TextEvaluator were highly correlated with

classi?cations of text complexity provided by expert human raters, as well as with scores determined from student per-

formance data.

?e TextEvaluator system is uniquely suited to measure the linguistic complexity of TOEFL reading passages for two

main reasons. First, it includes a wide variety of features that have been shown to be of use in assessing the linguistic

language readers (Brown, 1998; Crossley, Green?eld, & McNamara, 2008; Green?eld, 2004). Second, it also provides a set

of reference distributions designed to help test developers compare the linguistic characteristics of each new text to the

range of linguistic complexity observed for texts from certain known populations, that is, texts included on the TOEFL

iBT assessments.

Previous research has suggested that several of TextEvaluator"s features are valid for evaluating text complexity for

second-language readers. For example, features such as the average number of syllables per sentence, the percentage of

function words, the number of letters per word, and the number of words per sentence were found to be e?ective at

predicting reading di?culty for second-language readers (Brown, 1998; Green?eld, 2004). All these features are available

TOEFL iBT Research Report No.26 and ETS Research Report Series No. RR-15-08. © 2015 Educational Testing Service3

J. Chen & K. M. SheehanAnalyzing and Comparing Reading Stimulus Materials

TextEvaluator"s Feature Set

to adequately represent variation in text complexity (National Reading Panel, 2000; Rand Reading Study Group, 2002).

quotesdbs_dbs20.pdfusesText_26