Evaluation of Summarizing Patterns When Reading English Passages: Based on Educational Measurement

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine summarizing patterns in English reading and summarizing test items by proficiency level. Along with the summarization model proposed in the area of cognitive psychology, we developed four types of summarizing test items: 1) deleting unnecessary information from a summary, 2) generalizing a list of concrete examples, 3) integrating the entire information in the paragraph, and 4) summarizing the whole passage. Test takers were 60 undergraduate students, and were asked to answer a set of these reading and summarizing test items. After that, we asked three collaborators to classify students’ summaries into given categories. Tracelines showed that less proficient test takers included unnecessary information or concrete descriptions in their summaries, while middle-proficient students contained a biased statement or a different one from that of the writer. The finding in the current study may contribute to the development of test items or scoring rubrics.