抄録
It has been reported that test-wiseness, test-taking techniques, unrelated to the traits a test is intended to measure, that may increase test takers' scores, may include the effects of coaching or experience in taking tests. But is that really true? Why is that? This study aims to reinvestigate the effect of teaching a test-taking strategy to Japanese students on their performance on EFL classroom-based tests. Eighty-one 2nd-grade public high school students in Tokyo participated in this study. The experimental group (n = 40) was taught the components of a test-taking strategy such as reading the instructions carefully, scheduling their time appropriately, delaying answering difficult test items, and so forth. The results showed that the experimental group outperformed the control group (n = 41). The findings suggest that these is a positive relationship between test-performance and skills in test-taking. The findings also suggest that providing test-wise instructions to test-naive students encourages them to gain high scores as well as to improve their authentic English learning strategies.
