Testing Lecture Comprehension Through Listening-to-summarize Cloze Tasks

(r = 0.800, p = 0.000). We already talked about the fact that when participants
cannot recall complete information, they tend to delete propositional units to
summarize what they have heard, so the high correlation between deletion and
summarizing is understandable. Significant negative correlation lies in verbatim and
summarizing (r =−0.565, p = 0.022), verbatim and deletion (r =−0.555,
p = 0.026), paraphrase and summarizing(r =−0.621, p = 0.010), paraphrase and
deletion (r =−0.656, p = 0.006). Since verbatim and paraphrase represent retell-
ings that maintain most of the information while summarizing and deletion repre-
sent retellings that maintain part or the main structure of the discourse,
verbatim/paraphrase and deletion/summarizing are naturally correlated in a nega-
tive manner.
According to correlations between Phase 2 cognitive processes and task scores
(see Table7.3), we can detect a significant positive correlation between verbatim
and task score (r = 0.511, p = 0.043). Verbatim of complete clauses from the
original lecture can be viewed as an indicator of retained information in listeners’
mind, so the significant correlation between verbatim and test score suggests that
high achievers tend to retain more information than low achievers. We may also
find significant negative correlations between summarizing and task score
(r =−0.593, p = 0.016), deletion and task score (r =−0.696, p = 0.003). Those
negative correlations also suggest less proficient students tend to delete proposi-
tional units during retelling while proficient students tend to retain more informa-
tion while retelling the mini-lecture.

Table 7.2 Overall reported frequencies of cognitive operations in phase 2

Cognitive

processes

Participants’references

12345678910111213141516

Verbatim 2 2 6 000010601303 0

Paraphrase 11 13 10 13 15 9 11 15 7 14 2 7 5 9 5 2

Summarizing 8 4 5 8 8 10 6 6 9 0 15 7 8 6 8 15

Deletion 5 3 2 558625013744814

Generalization 1 0 1 221011000000 0

Construction 2 1 2 111033020420 1

Table 7.3 Correlations
between Phase 2 cognitive
processes and task scores
(Spearman’s; N = 16)

TEM 8 research version

Correlation coefficient Sig. (2-tailed)

Verbatim 0.511* 0.043

Paraphrase 0.263 0.326

Summarizing −0.593* 0.016

Deletion −0.696** 0.003

*Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed)

**Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed)

7.2 Participants’Overall Retelling Protocols in Phase 2............