The effects of interlocutors on student performance on constructed dialogue tasks assessing primary phrase stress production

Boyd, Ryan

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/44119 Copy

Description

Title

The effects of interlocutors on student performance on constructed dialogue tasks assessing primary phrase stress production

Author(s)

Boyd, Ryan

Issue Date

2013-05-24T21:51:15Z

Director of Research (if dissertation) or Advisor (if thesis)

Davidson, Frederick G.

Department of Study

Linguistics

Discipline

Teaching of English Sec Lang

Degree Granting Institution

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Degree Name

M.A.

Degree Level

Thesis

Keyword(s)

• testing
• english placement testing
• interlocutor
• interlocutor effects
• stress
• primary phrase stress
• intonation
• primary phrase stress and intonation production

Abstract

This study attempted to identify the effects that performance variation of interlocutors has on examinees in constructed dialogue tasks assessing primary phrase stress and intonation usage in American English by working with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign's (UIUC) oral section of its English placement test (EPT). This study developed a comparable version of a specific section of oral section of the EPT's specification which was administered to 47 incoming UIUC students. The participants were split into two groups and tested using two different types of interlocutor performance—one which adapts features identified in studies on spontaneous into the interlocutor performance and one which requires the interlocutor to read aloud. The two groups were further homogenized through separating the participants who were required to participate in phase II of UIUC’s oral section of the EPT from the participants who were not required to participate in phase II. By calculating mean difficulty from the number of correctly produced targets out of the total number of targets for each target, linguistic focus, and task, this study found that the specific group of participants required to take phase II of the oral section of the EPT receiving the adapted performance had a lower mean difficulty overall indicating that the test was easier for them while the groups who were not required to participate in phase II performed similarly in terms of mean difficulty. This study recommends future research for the EPT to further understand these findings.

Graduation Semester

2013-05

Permalink

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/44119

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2013 Ryan Boyd

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