constructed-response itemn
a type of test item or test task that requires test takers to respond to a series
of open-ended questions by writing, speaking, or doing something rather
than choose answers from a ready-made list. The most commonly used
types of constructed-response items include fill-in, short-answer, and
performance assessment.
see also selected-response item
construction n
an ordered arrangement of words that forms a larger unit, for example,
a determiner plus a noun forms a noun phrase.
see also construction grammar
construction grammarn
a linguistic theory that assumes that form-meaning correspondences are the
basic units of language. These units include constructions, each of which
has a specific syntactic configuration that is associated with a specific set of
semantic relations. Constructions exist independently of the particular
words that appear in them, but the semantics of the words that appear in a
construction fuse with the semantics of the construction itself. For example,
in sentence (b) the verb “sneeze” (normally an intransitive verb) takes on
the meaning of “cause to move” that is part of the resultative construction
that is common to both (a) and (b):
(a) John pushed the book off the shelf.
(b)John sneezed the tissue off the table.
In contrast with many linguistic theories that treat abstract principles and
formal operations as the essence of language and consider constructions
to be epiphenomenal (a by-product of deeper realities, uninteresting in
themselves), the notion of construction described by construction grammar
is much closer to the notions of “structure” and sentence pattern that
are found in language teaching.
constructionismn
see social constructionism
constructivismn
a social and educational philosophy based on the beliefs that:
1 knowledge is actively constructed by learners and not passively received
2 cognition is an adaptive process that organizes the learner’s experiential
world.
3 all knowledge is socially constructed
constructivism