Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2022 Jun 10:13:930075.
doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.930075. eCollection 2022.

The Metacognitive and Neurocognitive Signatures of Test Methods in Academic Listening

Jiayu Zhai  1   2 , Vahid Aryadoust  2
Affiliations

The Metacognitive and Neurocognitive Signatures of Test Methods in Academic Listening

Jiayu Zhai et al. Front Psychol. .

Abstract

This study aims to investigate whether and how test takers' academic listening test performance is predicted by their metacognitive and neurocognitive process under different test methods conditions. Eighty test takers completed two tests consisting of while-listening performance (WLP) and post-listening performance (PLP) test methods. Their metacognitive awareness was measured by the Metacognitive Awareness Listening Questionnaire (MALQ), and gaze behavior and brain activation were measured by an eye-tracker and functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS), respectively. The results of automatic linear modeling indicated that WLP and PLP test performances were predicted by different factors. The predictors of WLP test performance included two metacognitive awareness measures (i.e., person knowledge and mental translation) and fixation duration. In contrast, the predictors of the PLP performance comprised two metacognitive awareness measures (i.e., mental translation and directed attention), visit counts, and importantly, three brain activity measures: the dmPFC measure in the answering phase, IFG measure in the listening phase, and IFG measure in the answering phase. Implications of these findings for language assessment are discussed.

Keywords: eye-tracking; functional near-infrared spectroscopy; listening comprehension assessment; metacognitive awareness; non-invasive neurotechnologies.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Figures

FIGURE 1
FIGURE 1
Research design. fNIRS, functional near-infrared spectroscopy; MALQ, metacognitive awareness listening questionnaire.
FIGURE 2
FIGURE 2
The variables used in the current study. A, the audio texts listening phase; AVFixDur, average fixation duration; AVVisDur, average visit duration; DA, directed attention; dmPFC, dorsomedial prefrontal cortex; FixCounts, fixation counts; IFG, inferior frontal gyrus; MT, mental translation; PE, planning and evaluation; PK, person knowledge; PLP, post-listening performance; pMTG, posterior middle temporal gyrus; PS, problem solving; Q, the answering phase; VisCounts, visit counts; WLP, while-listening performance.
FIGURE 3
FIGURE 3
The visual representation of the ALM models for the WLP and PLP test methods. A, the audio texts listening phase; ALM, automatic linear modeling; dmPFC, dorsomedial prefrontal cortex; IFG, inferior frontal gyrus; PLP, post-listening performance; Q, the answering phase; WLP, while-listening performance.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

References

    1. Alderson J. C., Bachman L. F. (2001). “Series editors’ preface,” in Assessing Listening, ed. Buck G. (Cambridge University Press; ).
    1. Aryadoust V. (2012). Differential item functioning in while-listening performance tests: the case of the international english language testing system (IELTS) listening module. Int. J. List. 26 40–60. 10.1080/10904018.2012.639649 - DOI
    1. Aryadoust V. (2015). Fitting a mixture rasch model to english as a foreign language listening tests: the role of cognitive and background variables in explaining latent differential item functioning. Int. J. Test. 15 216–238. 10.1080/15305058.2015.1004409 - DOI
    1. Aryadoust V. (2019a). An integrated cognitive theory of comprehension. Int. J. List. 33 71–100. 10.1080/10904018.2017.1397519 - DOI
    1. Aryadoust V. (2019b). Dynamics of item reading and answer changing in two hearings in a computerized while-listening performance test: an eye-tracking study. Comput. Assist. Lang. Learn. 33 510–537. 10.1080/09588221.2019.1574267 - DOI