Using Videos in ESL Listening Achievement Tests: Effects on Difficulty

Abstract

The question as to whether an assessment construct of second language (L2) listening comprehensionshould include the decoding of visual information remains unanswered (see Buck, 2001; Ockey, 2007).This study aimed to fill this gap by investigating how audio-only and video-enhanced delivery formats oflistening passages compared in terms of difficulty for English as a second language (ESL) students. Itutilized students’ performance on listening achievement tests developed by the researcher. Theparticipants were 60 low- and high-proficiency ESL students enrolled in an American intensive Englishprogram. The participants’ scores on the achievement tests were used to compare the difficulty of items ofdifferent formats and determine whether this difficulty related to video type (context versus content) andstudents’ proficiency level. The findings suggested that, at least for higher-level students, listeningtestlets enhanced with videos containing mostly content-related visuals were significantly easier thantheir audio-only counterparts were. On the contrary, the inclusion of videos with mostly context visualsdid not affect the difficulty of testlets in any proficiency category. The findings are discussed in terms oftheir practical significance for ESL teachers as well as theoretical implications for the field of ESLlistening assessment.