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The Korean Association for the Study of English Language and Linguistics
[ Article ]
Korea Journal of English Language and Linguistics - Vol. 25, No. 0, pp.562-579
ISSN: 1598-1398 (Print) 2586-7474 (Online)
Print publication date 31 Jan 2025
Received 08 Mar 2025 Revised 29 Mar 2025 Accepted 18 Apr 2025
DOI: https://doi.org/10.15738/kjell.25..202504.562

수능 영어 빈칸추론 문항은 수험생들의 추론 능력을 측정하는가?

김정은 ; 김현진 ; 이선빈
전북대학교
아주대학교
서울대학교
Can the CSAT English gap-filling questions assess test-takers’ inference skills?
Jeong-eun Kim ; Hyun-Jin Kim ; Seon-bin Lee
(first author) Professor, Department of English Language and Literature Jeonbuk National University 567 Baekje-daero, Deokjin-gu, Jeonju-si, Jeollabuk-do, 54896 Republic of Korea jek48@jbnu.ac.kr
(corresponding author) Professor, Dasan University College Ajou University 206 Worldcup-ro, Yeongtong-gu Suwon-si, Gyeonggi-do, 16499 Republic of Korea hjinkim@ajou.ac.kr
Graduate student, Department of English Language Education Seoul National University 1 Gwanak-ro, Gwanak-gu, Seoul, 08826 Republic of Korea slee24@snu.ac.kr


© 2025 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

This study investigates the validity of gap-filling inference questions in the Korean CSAT English section by tracking learners’ problem-solving processes. Verbal data were collected from 51 university students, using the think-aloud protocol, as they engaged in gap-filling inference questions. We analyzed how accuracy rates were related to problem-solving time, the frequency and duration of inferencing, and various learner-internal variables such as English proficiency and topic familiarity. The results indicate that topic familiarity was the only significant predictor of accuracy, whereas English proficiency, problem-solving time, the frequency of inferencing occurrences, and the duration of inferencing did not show significant effects on accuracy rates. Additionally, participants reported that vocabulary difficulty, sentence complexity, and challenges in distinguishing answer choices were key factors contributing to the perceived difficulty of gap-filling inference questions. These findings suggest a need to reassess the validity of gap-filling inference questions in the CSAT and raise questions about whether they effectively measure inferential reasoning skills.

Keywords:

CSAT English, Gap-filling Questions, Inference, Think-aloud Protocol, Logistic Regression Analysis

키워드:

수능 영어, 빈칸 추론, 추론 능력, 사고 구술법, 로지스틱 회귀분석

Acknowledgments

이 논문은 2024년도 한국중등영어교육학회의 Special Interest Group(연구팀명: 국가주도영어시험연구)의 지원을 받아 수행된 연구임.

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