The Development and Validation of a Test of Lexical Access Speed

Abstract

Although lexical access is considered as a dimension of vocabulary knowledge, a test of such knowledge has yet to be developed and validated. In this study, an attempt was made to develop and validate a test that measures lexical access speed. A total of 303 Japanese university students and English teachers took the test and the results were compared with overall English proficiency. Further, a questionnaire was conducted with teachers to find out if they considered the test a measure of lexical access speed. The results revealed that although what the newly developed test measured showed moderate correlations with English proficiency, the test tended to show shorter response times for participants with higher proficiency. It was also revealed that the majority of the teachers felt that the test measured their lexical access speed or word recognition speed, even though they were not informed of the purpose of the test. The potential of the test as a measure of lexical access speed is discussed.