test-takers’ cognitive processing while they are taking IELTS reading tests.
Similarly, the current study would also describe and analyze the test-takers’cog-
nitive processes in completing a listen-to-summarize lecture comprehension task,
but with a different research focus from Richard and Yan’s study.
3.3 Task-Based Construct...................................
Defining the tasks the listeners can perform in the target language context is the
alternative way to access the listening construct. In this way, we need to define what
the test-takers can do and under what circumstances they can do. Buck (2001)
defined a task-based listening construct as follows:
A framework for defining listening task characteristics:
- Characteristics of the setting: physical characteristics; participants; time of task
- Characteristics of the test rubric: instructions; structure; time allotment; scoring
method - Characteristics of the input: format; language of input; topical knowledge
- Characteristics of the expected response: format; language of expected response
- Relationship between the input and response: reactively; scope; directness of
relationship (p. 107)
Buck’s framework derives from Bachman and Palmer’s (1996) list of charac-
teristics used to compare test tasks and real world tasks. Therefore, Buck’s (2001:
- argument is that authenticity is the predominant factor in defining a task-based
construct. Authenticity has two subtypes: situational authenticity and interactive
authenticity (Buchman and Palmer 1996). The paradox inherent in situational
authenticity is that test designers assume the tasks they deploy in a test could
replicate real tasks test-takers fulfill in the target language use domain. However,
language teachers often come across cases that some students who may have
achieved satisfactory marks in a language proficiency test still fail to communicate
in the target language. Simply, it is a matter of degree to which test tasks can
replicate real tasks in that the testing situation is generically different from real
language use situations. Buck (2001: 108) concluded what we could do was to
ensure that“the test task replicates the most critical aspects of the target-language
use task”and hence we also need to compare the competences they both require. To
localize situational authenticity in academic listening, we mayfind it hard to
generalize an academic situation where afixed set of listening tasks is required;
nevertheless, the critical task is still lecture comprehension, which is already
thoroughly discussed in Sect.2.2. Here, a possible argument could be that a
replicated task in the test situation is an authentic lecture delivered to the test-takers
and a task or a series of tasks oriented toward measuring their lecture compre-
hension. Bearing in mind Gary Buck’s (2001) features of spoken language, such as
speech rates, redundancy in the input, stress and intonation, pause, disfluencies of
28 3 Approaches to Assessment of Lecture Comprehension