Introduction
In the field of language testing, the notion of reduced redundancy (RR)
has a principal effect on constructing language tests procedures to
measure readability. Spolsky (1968) proposed the reduced redundancy
principle (RRP) for devising tests to measure the ability of the test
takers in language proficiency. The theoretical underpinning of reduced
redundancy principle is that redundancy exists in natural languages to
reduce the possibility of errors, ambiguity, and misinterpretation in
communicating (Splosky, 1968, 1969). To construct the tests based on
reduced redundancy principles, noise should be added into the authentic
material or the portion of authentic text should be covered and present
it to the test takers to reconstruct it (Splosky, 1969, Klein Braley,
1997). As a matter of fact, the performance of the examinees to restore
the mutilated text as well as their skill to perceive the redundancy in
the text are viewed as their level of language proficiency.
The most familiar reduced redundancy test is the cloze test which was
introduced by Taylor (1953) as a psychological tool to measure
readability. The theoretical underpinnings of the cloze test are based
on the law of closure which is derived from Gestalt psychology (Taylor,
1953). Cloze test procedure is developed by dropping up the words based
on some rules in the passage. The subjects need to complete the broken
patterns and reconstruct the passage by providing the missing words
where they are blanked out. Jonz (1976) pointed out two defects for the
cloze test: “the provision of a range of choices and reduction in the
number of items in the test” (p. 256). Multiple-choice cloze test was
proposed by Jonz (1976) to overcome the shortcomings of the cloze.
Multiple-choice cloze test provides sufficient placement accuracy, to
simplify testing and scoring time as well as a limited range of choices
(Baghaei & Ravand, 2016; Jonz, 1976).
According to Alderson (1979, 1980), the validity of the cloze test is
sensitive to change the deletion frequency of cloze test and did not
evaluate the homogeneous ability. Furthermore, there are some arguments
about the reliability, validity, systematic deletion, and scoring
procedure of the cloze test (Klein-Braley & Raatz, 1984). To remedy the
drawbacks of the cloze test, C-Test was recommended by Klein-Braley and
Raatz (1984). C-Test is a variation of the cloze test and thus has the
same theoretical underpinnings and psychometric principles as the cloze
test (Grotjahn, 1986). In developing the C-Test, parts of the words are
omitted, not the whole words as cloze test ( Grotjahn, Klein-Braley,
Raatz, 2002). In the field of C-Test, many quantitative and qualitative
types of research have been presented to demonstrate the validity and
reliability of the C-Test (Baghaei & Grotjahn, 2014a; Baghaei &
Grotjahn, 2014b; Baghaei, 2014; Baghaei, 2010; Eckes & Grotjahn, 2006;
Raatz, 1985). It has been studied in more than 20 languages and
considered as an economical measurement instrument for assessing
language proficiency (Baghaei, 2011a; Baghaei, 2011b; Baghaei, 2008;
Eckes & Grotjahn, 2006).
Cloze-elide test also belongs to the family of reduced redundancy tests
which is used as a language proficiency test and a reading comprehension
test (Holster, 2017; Manning, 1987). According to Alderson (2000),
“this variant of reduced redundancy test was proposed by Davis in 1960
and known as ‘ intrusive word technique’. It also had various titles
such as ‘text retrieval’, ‘text interruption’, ‘doctored text’,
‘mutilated text’, and ‘negative cloze’. It was labeled as a cloze elide
test in 1980” (p.225).
To operationalization of the reduced redundancy principle in the
cloze-elide test, extraneous words are inserted into the text randomly
instead of deleting words. The test takers are required to identify the
extraneous words and edit the text by eliminating them ( Holster, 2017;
Manning, 1987). Thus, the ability of the examinees to recognize the
redundant words in the text are considered as their level of language
proficiency. In other words, the more proficient language learner, the
more successful they will be in identifying the superfluous words in the
text.