Testing Lecture Comprehension Through Listening-to-summarize Cloze Tasks

item to represent this factor, which directs toward the decoding process of listening
comprehension.
For the third factor, the most heavily loaded items on it include items 22, 23, 26
and 27 (above 0.6) containing repeated key words such as detailed information,
micro discourse markers, etc., and therefore, in this case, the third factor mainly
deals with micro discourse representation.
For the fourth factor, the most representative items heavily loaded (above 0.7) on
it are items 16, 17 and 18, indicating mastering the key points and macro structure
of the lecture through macro discourse markers. Supportive items are item 19 which
underlines differentiation between major and minor information and items 15 and
24 which emphasize cohesion and cohesive devices. In contrast to the third factor,
the last factor can be named as creating macro discourse representation.
There is no cross-loading above 0.5 in this four-factor structure.

5.5.3 Similarities and Differences Between Teachers’

and Students’Perception

Comparing the teachers’ factor structure and students’ factor structure (see
Table5.16), we canfind that the same four factors have been extracted: 1. Macro
discourse construction, 2. Micro discourse construction, 3. Note-taking, 4.
Decoding. Though there are slight differences across the items that represent the
corresponding factors, the main factor structure is similar, indicating the four
extracted factors largely represent task demands of TEM 8 Mini-lecture and
Gap-filling task.
The major difference lies in thefirst factor extracted and the sequence of main
components. Generally speaking, the teachers’perception on the skills represen-
tative of academic listening construct is rather homogeneous because thefirst
extracted factor is quite dominant and the discourse level comprehension is
emphasized while the students, who have obtained thefirsthand experience of the
test itself because they are asked to complete the questionnaire after completing a
TEM8 simulation test, believe taking notes is extremely important as during the
TEM 8 Mini-lecture comprehension test, the gap-filling task is given after the
lecture has been delivered. Simply put, the studentsfirmly believe they cannot

Table 5.15 Main factors extracted from student questionnaire

Factor Factor 1

Taking

effective notes

Factor 2

Decoding

acoustic/visual input

Factor 3

Creating micro

discourse

representation

Factor 4

Creating macro

discourse

representation

Items Items 28, 29,

31, 32, 33, 34,

35

Items 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6,

7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12,

13

Items 14, 20, 21,

22, 23, 25, 26, 27,

30

Items 15, 16, 17,

18, 19, 24

5.5 Results of Questionnaire Survey 61