Chapter 3
Approaches to Assessment of Lecture
Comprehension
3.1 Introduction..........................................
This chapterfirst focuses on the construct of lecture comprehension from the
competence-based and task-based aspects. The competence-based aspect is further
supported by the sub–skill approach centering upon academic listening skills, the
strategy approach pertaining to cognitive and metacognitive listening strategies and
the cognitive approach focused on cognitive processes or levels of academic lis-
tening. The task-based aspect is constructed upon the definition of the tasks the
listeners can perform in the target language context.
Buck (2001) established two approaches to the definition of listening construct,
i.e., the competence-based construct and the task-based construct. With the rise of
listening comprehension research from the perspective of cognitive psychology, it
is worth investigating the cognitive approach that contributes to construct con-
ceptualization of lecture comprehension in addition to the conventional ways.
3.2 The Competence-Based Construct.........................
The competence-based construct is based upon a strong prerequisite that certain
skills and strategies are representative of listeners’different proficiency levels. Skill
and strategy are two concepts that have been used interchangeably by researchers.
However, the targets of the two concepts are different. Skills refer to the compo-
nents that constitute an observed ability while strategies are conducted by indi-
viduals with an aim to fulfill a certain cognitive task. While localizing these two
broad terms, here, we only discuss skills and strategies within the domain of aca-
demic listening assessment.
©Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2018
H. Wang,Testing Lecture Comprehension Through Listening-to-summarize
Cloze Tasks, DOI 10.1007/978-981-10-6202-5_3
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