How do distractor types relate to Japanese reading comprehension assessments

The relationship between distractor types and Japanese reading comprehension assessments involves how different distractors (incorrect answer choices) reflect and influence the assessment of reading skills such as summarization and comprehension processes. Studies have examined distractor selection in multiple-choice tests for Japanese learners, focusing on summarization skills. Distractors are crafted to mirror typical student errors related to processes like deletion, generalization, and integration during summarization of English paragraphs. These distractor types help assess the depth and nature of students’ reading comprehension by identifying which distractors lower proficiency learners are likely to select, thereby informing educators about specific comprehension challenges. ^{1, 2}

Additionally, specialized training approaches for Japanese students, including those with learning disabilities or autism, have shown that segment-unit reading can improve reading comprehension, suggesting distractors in assessments may need to consider segmental processing difficulties. Distractors also relate to cognitive demands such as sustained attention and response inhibition, which contribute to reading comprehension among Japanese adolescents; thus, effective distractors in Japanese assessments may target these cognitive aspects to better evaluate comprehension. ^{3, 4}

In summary, distractor types in Japanese reading comprehension assessments are deliberately designed to match typical student errors and cognitive processes involved in reading, aiding in nuanced evaluation of comprehension skills across different learner profiles. ^{2, 4, 1}

References

• A Comparison of Distractor Selection Among Proficiency Levels in Reading Tests: A Focus on Summarization Processes in Japanese EFL Learners

• Difficulty of Summarization Items for Japanese Learners: Effects of Passages, Distractors, and Response Formats

• Segment-Unit Reading Comprehension Training for Japanese Students with Autism Spectrum Disorder and Learning Disabilities

• The Contribution of Sustained Attention and Response Inhibition to Reading Comprehension Among Japanese Adolescents

• Automatic Generation of Inference Making Questions for Reading Comprehension Assessments

• High-quality distractor generation framework for English reading comprehension

• Performance on Reading Comprehension Assessments and College Achievement: A Meta-Analysis

• Once Upon a GPT-4: Enhancing Diversity in Automated Reading Comprehension Story Generation with Classic Tales

• Support for Reading Comprehension of Scholarly Papers in Japanese Using ChatGPT

• Wrong Answers Only: Distractor Generation for Russian Reading Comprehension Questions Using a Translated Dataset

• Scanpath Regularity as an Index of Reading Comprehension

• Assessment of emotion word vocabulary and its contribution to reading comprehension

• Korean High School Students’ L1 Summary Writing as a Predictor of EFL Reading Comprehension

• Generating Distractors for Reading Comprehension Questions from Real Examinations

• Assessing Distractors in Multiple-Choice Tests

• Background Speech Effects on Sentence Processing during Reading: An Eye Movement Study

• ISSR: Iterative Selection with Self-Review for Vocabulary Test Distractor Generation

• What breaks the flow of reading? A study on characteristics of attentional disruption during digital reading