Contingent upon identifying key points and their relationship, constructing a
macro-level discourse structure should facilitate the holistic grasp of the lecture
content. On the other hand, students believe taking effective notes is the most
important and hence note-taking factor is the most dominant in their four-factor
structure. Students’perception proves that they rely heavily on note-taking while
completing the structured summary cloze task after hearing the mini-lecture.
However, note-taking is actually the mental representation of discourse construc-
tion; therefore, discourse construction and note-taking happen the same time and
the effect of discourse construction and note-taking is interwoven.
9.3.2 Research Question 2
What are the main cognitive processes test-takers undergo while completing the
structured listen-to-summarize cloze task after listening to an academic mini-
lecture?
The main cognitive processes involved in the test-taking phase are decoding and
selective attention, meaning and discourse construction and monitoring process,
represented by their respective detailed cognitive operations.
2.1 How do the task targets of the listen-to-summarize cloze task interact with
test-takers’test-taking cognitive processes?
Supported by substantial TAP data, the four task targets of the structured
listen-to-summarize cloze task have successfully targeted the level of cognitive
processing they are calibrated to. For example, details gaps have mainly targeted
test-takers’ lower-level cognitive processes such as input decoding, selective
attention and parsing. On a few occasions, details gaps have also targeted meaning
construction at the word level or lexical chunk level. Key-point gaps pertaining to
the qualitative data in the current project have only targeted lower level of cognitive
processes including input decoding, selective attention and parsing. Inference gaps
have successfully targeted test-takers’higher-level cognitive processes like mean-
ing construction, especially on the basis of the fact that test-takers’meaning
enrichment and information handling are fully activated. Summary gaps aim at a
group of sentences and have successfully targeted higher-level cognitive processes
including discourse construction, given the data that demonstrate the test-takers’
efforts to summarize a group of idea units as well as their top-down processing with
the schema knowledge fully engaged.
2.2 To what extent do test-takers of various language competence levels differ in
terms of their cognitive processes involved in completing the structured listen-to-
summarize cloze task?
Due to generic differences between individual test-takers in terms of their per-
sonality, learning style, competence, motivation, schema, etc., test-takers differ in
their cognitive processes and hence their performances in an academic listening
assessment. Major differences between test-takers across test-taking and retelling
cognitive processes lie in decoding of sound patterns, selection of key words and
158 9 Conclusion and Recommendations