Startseite Linguistik & Semiotik Investigating EFL learners’ reading comprehension processes across multiple choice and short answer tasks
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Investigating EFL learners’ reading comprehension processes across multiple choice and short answer tasks

  • Jufang Kong und Mingwei Pan EMAIL logo
Veröffentlicht/Copyright: 12. August 2025
Applied Linguistics Review
Aus der Zeitschrift Applied Linguistics Review Band 16 Heft 6

Abstract

Reading comprehension is an essential language skill and cognitive ability usually elicited and examined through tasks. Investigations into the effects of task type on reading comprehension have mostly focused on reading outcome (accuracy) and drawn divergent conclusions because of research instrument restrictions. This study employed eye tracking to explore 43 Chinese English as a foreign language (EFL) learners’ reading comprehension processes with the multiple choice (MC) and short answer (SA) tasks based on Khalifa and Weir’s model of reading. It was found that: (1) task type influences EFL learners’ reading of the text and question stems, with the MC task eliciting more careful and expeditious reading of the text and the SA task producing more fixations and saccades in the question stems; (2) task type does not influence EFL learners’ eye-movement patterns in task completion; and (3) processing demand (realized through scope and depth) influences EFL learners’ cognitive load and attention allocation, although the effects are not as salient as those of task type. This study examines EFL learners’ reading comprehension processes modulated by task type and makes scholarly contributions through locally expanding Khalifa and Weir’s model.

Keywords: reading comprehension; task type; EFL learners; eye tracking; cognitive processing
Corresponding author: Mingwei Pan, School of Education, Shanghai International Studies University, Shanghai, China, E-mail:

Funding source: Zhejiang Federation of Humanities and Social Sciences

Award Identifier / Grant number: 22NDJC059YB

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank all the participants of this study and are grateful to the editor and the peer reviewers for devoting their valuable time to give feedback on earlier versions of this article.

  1. Research ethics: This study was conducted at Zhejiang Normal University, China. All the participants provided written informed consent.

  2. Conflict of interest: The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

  3. Research funding: This study was supported by Zhejiang Federation of Humanities and Social Sciences (Project No. 22NDJC059YB).

  4. Data availability: The authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article and its Supplementary Materials.

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Supplementary Material

This article contains supplementary material (https://doi.org/10.1515/applirev-2024-0025).

Received: 2024-01-21
Accepted: 2025-07-25
Published Online: 2025-08-12
Published in Print: 2025-11-25

© 2025 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

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https://doi.org/10.1515/applirev-2024-0025
Schlagwörter für diesen Artikel
reading comprehension; task type; EFL learners; eye tracking; cognitive processing

Artikel in diesem Heft

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Research Articles
  3. Investigating the role of ideal L2 writing self, writing growth mindset, and writing enjoyment in L2 writing self-efficacy: a mediation model
  4. The role of home biliteracy environment in Chinese-Canadian children’s early bilingual receptive vocabulary development
  5. Review Article
  6. A systematic review of time-intensive methods for capturing non-linear L2 development
  7. Research Articles
  8. Reflexivity as a means to address researcher vulnerabilities
  9. L2 English pronunciation instruction: techniques that increase expiratory drive through enhanced use of the abdominal muscles, and transfer of learning
  10. Review Article
  11. Early career language teachers’ cognition, practice, and continuous professional development: a scoping review of empirical research
  12. Research Articles
  13. Unpacking digital-driven language management in a Chinese transnational company: an exploratory case study
  14. Unequal translanguaging: the affordances and limitations of a translanguaging space for alleviating students’ foreign language anxiety in language classrooms
  15. Monologuing into a dialogic space through translanguaging: probing the perceptions and practices of a history EMI teacher in higher education
  16. How foreign language learners’ benign and deleterious self-directed humour shapes their classroom anxiety and enjoyment
  17. Generative AI and the future of writing for publication: insights from applied linguistics journal editors
  18. Positive emotions fuel creativity: exploring the role of passion and enjoyment in Chinese EFL teachers’ creativity in light of the investment theory of creativity
  19. The perception of gradient acceptability among L1 Polish monolingual and bilingual speakers
  20. Navigating between ‘global’ and ‘local’: a transmodal genre analysis of flight safety videos
  21. Investigating EFL learners’ reading comprehension processes across multiple choice and short answer tasks
  22. English medium instruction lecturer within-course linguistic evolution: monitoring changes between STEM lectures
  23. Contributions of interaction, growth language mindset, and L2 grit to student engagement in online EFL learning: a mixed-methods approach
  24. Performing my other self: movement between languages, cultures and societies
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