ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Assessment, Testing and Applied Measurement
Modifying Gap Placement, Topic, and Evaluation Method: The Impact of Modified C-Tests and Gender on Test-Performance and the Relationship Between Modified C-Tests and Mathematical Performance
Provisionally accepted
- 1Institute of Educational Sciences, Leuphana University, Lüneburg, Germany
- 2Institue of Educational Science, Leuphana Universitat Luneburg, Lüneburg, Germany
- 3Institute of Mathematics and its Didactics, Leuphana Universitat Luneburg, Lüneburg, Germany
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C-Tests are employed globally to evaluate general language proficiency, and modifications of the typical C-Test have been proposed. Given the strong connection between language and mathematics, this study, besides investigating the difficulty of C-Test modifications and the impact of the test taker's gender, examines the relationship between modified C-Tests and mathematical performance across different content areas. 190 seventh graders were surveyed on their mathematical skills and given C-Tests with variations in gap placement (beginning vs. end) and topic (mathematical vs. general). Two evaluation methods were examined (correct/incorrect vs. word-recognition). GLMM analyses show that (a) the initial gap is the key factor contributing to test difficulty, (b) girls outperform boys, (c) boys benefit more from mathematical texts, girls from gaps at the end of words, (d) arithmetic shows the strongest, geometry the weakest relationship to C-Test performance, (e) students with higher mathematical competencies benefit significantly from mathematical C-Tests, and (f) students with lower mathematical competencies benefit significantly from C-Tests where the gap is at the end of the word. Findings show that design features and gender impact C-Test difficulty and must be kept in mind when determining language competence through it. Furthermore, this study extends current research by demonstrating how specific language skills measured through modified C-Tests relate to different mathematical competencies and therefore once more advocates the integration of language in mathematics education by presenting the C-Test as a possibility for this.
Keywords: C-test, gender differences, Language and mathematics, language proficiency, language testing, mathematics education
Received: 04 Sep 2025; Accepted: 03 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Klotz, Ehmke and Leiss. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Eileen Klotz, eileen.klotz@leuphana.de
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