Using Videos in ESL Listening Achievement Tests: Effects on Difficulty

Abstract

The question as to whether an assessment construct of second language (L2) listening comprehension

should 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 of

listening passages compared in terms of difficulty for English as a second language (ESL) students. It

utilized students’ performance on listening achievement tests developed by the researcher. The

participants were 60 low- and high-proficiency ESL students enrolled in an American intensive English

program. The participants’ scores on the achievement tests were used to compare the difficulty of items of

different formats and determine whether this difficulty related to video type (context versus content) and

students’ proficiency level. The findings suggested that, at least for higher-level students, listening

testlets enhanced with videos containing mostly content-related visuals were significantly easier than

their audio-only counterparts were. On the contrary, the inclusion of videos with mostly context visuals

did not affect the difficulty of testlets in any proficiency category. The findings are discussed in terms of

their practical significance for ESL teachers as well as theoretical implications for the field of ESLlistening assessment.

Keywords

• Audio; second language; listening test; video; content visuals

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