Investigating Relationships among Test Taker's Characteristics and Response Formats in a Reading Comprehension Test: A Structural Equation Modeling Approach

The present study attempted to explore the effect of cognitive and metacognitive strategy use and motivation on Iranian test takers’ performance on multiple choice (MC) and constructed response (CR) tests of reading comprehension. Three hundred and sixty six students completed a cognitive and metacognitive strategy use questionnaire and a motivation questionnaire along with a MC and a CR form of a reading comprehension test. Independent-samples t-test showed that test takers’ performance differed significantly on MC and CR forms of the reading comprehension test. The effect of cognitive and metacognitive strategy use and motivation on test takers’ performance on MC and CR test was measured using structural equation modeling (SEM). It was found that cognitive strategy use had a significant direct effect on MC and CR but metacognitive strategy use had a significant indirect effect on MC and CR. The results also showed that motivation affected MC and CR both directly and indirectly. Another finding of the study was that performance on MC and CR tests of reading comprehension was equally affected by motivation and cognitive strategy use.