Is de cloze-toets een betrouwbare en valide maat voor begrijpend lezen?

The cloze test (short gap-filling text) is currently used to measure reading comprehension. The qualityofthismeasureforreadingcomprehension, however, has been subject of debate. Two different studies were conducted to examine the reliability and validity of two types of multiple-choice cloze-tests; one with fixed-ratio gaps, every 11^th word is replaced by three answer options, and one with variably-spaced gaps, gaps that are selected so that they require inferencing. Participants were 312 fifth graders in the first study and 100 third and fourth graders in the second study. The results showed that the variably-spaced cloze test had a stronger correlation with vocabulary than the fixed-ratio cloze test, whereas the fixed-ratio cloze test had a higher correlation with reading fluency than the variably-spaced cloze test. Furthermore, the accuracy approach correlated stronger with reading comprehension than the speed approach. The accuracy approach of the variably-spaced cloze test is thus the most valid measure for reading comprehension. The reliability of this test, however, was poor. Thus none of the cloze-tests used in the current study can be used as a measure for reading comprehension.