ABSTRACT
R ecent in terest in second language testing has been focused on revealing the com plexities o f cognitive processes underlying responses to test task prom pts in o rd e r to exam ine construct valid ity. This in terest is m otivated by the assum ption tha t o u r u n d e r standing o f the validity o f test results m ust go beyond an exam ination o f correlational pa tterns o f item responses with ex ternal criteria to include strategic criteria in ternal to the testtaker (H enning , 1992). Similarly, for applied linguists to u n d er stand the na tu re o f com prehension in language processing tasks, other, m ore subject-centred approaches need to be considered (C ohen, 1987). O ne approach to exploring com prehension and perfo rm ance in language processing tasks and tests has been in trospection . T h rough introspective analysis o f the processing strategies language learners have used, a new avenue to u n d e r standing the validity o f item responses and com prehension sche m ata is potentially opened .
