The effect of test format on productive recall of derivatives

This study investigated the extent to which two recall test formats – contextualized and decontextualized tests – affected productive recall of derivatives, and how the effects of token frequencies of derivatives and L2 receptive vocabulary knowledge on recalling derivatives was moderated by test format. Mixed effects logistic regression models examined the derivatives elicited from L1 (n = 21) and L2 English speakers’ (n = 107) on the two recall tests. Results indicated that contextual cues significantly facilitated recalling derivatives, while such facilitative effects were larger for native speakers and L2 learners with greater vocabulary knowledge. Furthermore, token frequency affected the responses on the decontextualized test to a greater degree compared to the contextualized test. Results suggest that test format influences test-takers’ ability to recall knowledge to produce derivatives.