Proceedings of the Inaugural Centre for Language Studies International Conference on Foreign Language Teaching and Learning (ClasSIC) 2004 Conference, University of Singapore 2004年12月
A quantitative analysis of quiz-taker responses to 5-option multiple-choice items was conducted in order to elucidate the guessing strategies that quiz-takers most commonly employ when they do not know the correct answers in English grammar quizzes. Enough key words were blanked out in 8 question stems, each pertaining to a different grammatical concept, to ensure the correct answers became indiscernible to the 154 Japanese university students taking part in the study. Statistical evidence confirmed up to three strategies to be more common than the unsophisticated ‘when in doubt, choose option c’ notion with the data most strongly supporting a quiz-taker tendency to select the option representing the most positive concept. In the absence of ‘positive options’ quiz-takers appeared to next prefer selection of familiar, easy to understand options.<br />
pp.223-236.