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The Korean Association for the Study of English Language and Linguistics
[ Article ]
Korea Journal of English Language and Linguistics - Vol. 26, No. 0, pp.1214-1241
ISSN: 1598-1398 (Print) 2586-7474 (Online)
Print publication date 31 Oct 2026
Received 16 Jul 2026 Revised 11 Aug 2026 Accepted 23 Sep 2026
DOI: https://doi.org/10.15738/kjell.26..202610.1214

대학생 영어학습자의 토익 리딩 파트 5 문법 문항 오답 양상 분석

Hyesun Cho
Professor, Department of Education, Graduate School of Education Dankook University 152, Jukjeon-ro, Suji-gu, Yongin-si, Gyeonggi-do, Korea, Tel: +82-31-8005-3968 hscho@dankook.ac.kr
An analysis of incorrect answer patterns on TOEIC reading Part 5 grammar items among Korean university EFL learners


© 2026 KASELL All rights reserved
This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons License, which permits unrestricted non-commercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Most grammatical error analyses have focused on EFL students’ writing, with less attention to performance on controlled grammar tasks. This study analyzes incorrect answer patterns in TOEIC Part 5 grammar exercises among 220 Korean university students across four independent annual cohorts. Students reported the question numbers of items they had answered incorrectly through the university’s e-learning system. In the descriptive analysis, sentence structure and nouns had the highest mean error rates (i.e., rates of incorrect answers). However, the main effect of grammatical category was not significant in a linear mixed-effects model accounting for item- and year-level variation. Supplementary descriptive analysis showed that the coordinating/noun-clause conjunction and participle categories contained the most items with error rates above the overall mean. Across all four cohorts, mean error rates for sentence structure and nouns exceeded the corresponding annual overall means, whereas those for prepositions and comparisons remained below them. Analysis of individual items with high error rates showed that the two items with the highest mean error rates involved noun countability. Items with relatively high error rates included those requiring consideration of multiple grammatical features, such as noun countability and subject-verb agreement, whereas lower-error items included those centered on a single feature. These findings can inform diagnostic activities and focused instruction in university TOEIC preparation and grammar courses, while underscoring the importance of item-level variation.

Keywords:

TOEIC Part 5, incorrect answer patterns, grammatical errors, university EFL learners, item-level variation

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