Past research (e.g., Hunt, 1978) found a small but consistent statistical association between psychometric tests of verbal ability and performance on a letter-matching task common in psychological research. This task purports to demonstrate the interaction between pattern recognition and processes requiring conversion from a visual to a verbal code. In particular, the measure indicating the speed of code conversion was shown to be correlated with verbal ability tests. The question raised in this dissertation was whether a test of language proficiency (TOEFL) could be similarly linked to letter-matching performance. The essential assumption underlying the research was that, for this purpose, TOEFL could be reasonably compared to the aforementioned tests for native speakers of English. The letter-matching task was administered by computer to a group of university age foreign students, half of whom were studying ESL; half were already regularly enrolled students at American universities. This partition was meant to demonstrate the stability of the letter-matching data as measures of individual differences. A postiori, two other subgroups were identified: a group of subjects whose native language is regularly written in Arabic script, and another group whose native language is written using the Latin alphabet. Since the required task utilized letters of the alphabet, the selection of these groups made it possible to a degree to examine the effects of past training. Results were not conclusive. Letter-matching association with the Listening Comprehension section of the TOEFL was strongest for low proficiency individuals; for high proficiency individuals, the Vocabulary and Reading Comprehension scores were the strongest correlate. Some differences emerged according to native language writing system. For the Latin alphabet subgroup, the correlation between the / code conversion measure and Reading Comprehension scores was -.398. It was suggested that this value parallels previous findings, in that this section of the test most closely resembles verbal ability tests for native speakers. Oller's (1978) suggestion that all psychometric tests tap similar abilities was judged to be confirmed. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 47-06, Section: A, page: 2092. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--The Florida State University, 1986.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_75837 |
| Contributors | PONDER, ROGER WESLEY., Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text |
| Format | 156 p. |
| Rights | On campus use only. |
| Relation | Dissertation Abstracts International |
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