Professor Stephen Bax, when Deputy Director of CRELLA, won the TESOL Distinguished Researcher award 2014 for his article in the world leading Language Testing journal on the use of eye-tracking technology in researching reading tests.

This research was funded by the British Council and examined the ways in which test takers complete reading tests. It used modern eye-tracking technology to see how the eye movements of successful test takers as they completed the test compared with the eye movements of less successful readers.

The technology was able to show in graphic detail how successful readers differed from less successful readers, and was the first time the technology had been applied in this way.

The publication was therefore ground breaking in its use of a new approach to researching language testing, and also offered recommendations to teachers, learners and test providers on how to address reading in language tests in the future.

Using eye tracking in this way helps us to see if a language test meets the required standards of validity, in particular what is known as cognitive validity, since it helps us to understand the cognitive workings of a reader’s mind as she or he reads a text.

Professor Bax is currently involved in further CRELLA research into cognitive validity in writing tests, This research uses eye tracking in conjunction with ‘key stroke logging’ software, which gives detailed information about a writer’s use of the keyboard, to complement the information about eye movements. In these ways we should be able to build up a more complete idea of what readers and writers are doing and thinking as they complete tests.

These research projects spring from Professor Stephen Bax’s long-term interest in second language reading. His book ‘Discourse and Genre’ (Palgrave 2011) examined ways in which different types of prior knowledge help us to read texts in different genres. His book ‘Researching Intertextual Reading’ (2013) looks at higher order reading across different texts (‘intertextually’). He has also recently completed research on the use of computer analysis tools in analysing metadiscourse markers in texts.

References

• Bax, S. (2013) ‘The cognitive processing of candidates during reading tests: Evidence from eye-tracking’ Language Testing October 2013, 30 no. 4 441-465
• Bax, S. (2013)Researching Intertextual Reading Peter Lang
• Bax, S. (2011) Discourse and Genre. Palgrave Macmillan