The purpose of this presentation is to demonstrate various test-taking strategies that 103 Japanese students utilized dealing with TOEFL®-iBT integrated-skills test items. The study revealed that the students used a variety of cognitive and metacognitive strategies which appear to be influenced by their different subskill combinations and proficiency levels.
Despite an increasing emphasis on integrated-skills instruction placed in Japanese EFL classrooms (MEXT, 2012), integrated-skills tests and assessment have been less discussed with few empirical studies. In fact, Japanese students struggle with integrated-skills test tasks, as they require test takers to use more complex and multiple-faceted strategies compared to independent-skill test tasks. To better understand how test takers try to overcome the difficulties in responding to integrated-skills test questions, an empirical study was conducted on effective and ineffective strategies, following previous studies stuch as Barkaoui, et al. (2013). The aim of the presentation is to demonstrate the kinds of cognitive and metacognitive test taking strategies which are used to produce both successful and unsuccessful responses to integrated-skills test items. The subjects were 103 Japanese university students with TOEFL®-iBT scores of 60 points and above. First, a cluster analysis was done to their responses to both the writing and the speaking independent tasks and integrated-skills tasks in TOEFL preparation tests in order to find 6 representative participants who have different subskill combinations. Then, an in-depth qualitative analysis was done to these 6 participants’ actual responses and problem-solving processes through interviews and retrospective protocols to elucidate various types of cognitive and metacognitive strategies they used. The finding showed that while most advanced-level students exhibited global understanding and successfully utilized “discourse synthetic” structures (Plakans, 2013) in their responses, many intermediate-level students tried to offset their lack of receptive skills by various compensatory strategies, often desperately. Though intermediate-level students can learn the strategies used by advanced-level students, there are some effective strategies they used, which may benefit students with different subskill combinations. The implication of teaching these strategies in classrooms will also be discussed.
