A methodological review of listening comprehension tests for primary school children

A child’s ability to comprehend speech in the mainstream classroom is vital for intellectual and social development. However, listening conditions are often sub-optimal; the presence of multiple talkers, high noise levels, and long reverberation times add to the challenge of listening with a developing auditory system. An assessment that captures the everyday demands of listening comprehension in the primary school classroom is required to understand what drives student performance. This paper reviews listening comprehension tests found in the research literature and examines implications for classroom listening. A comprehensive search of three online databases was conducted in August 2021. The search term was classroom AND listening AND comprehension AND (test* OR assess* OR measure*). Seventy-five papers met the inclusion criteria and 39 different tests were found. These tests were assessed according to their features, such as standardization, reliability metrics, and stimulus presentation. Most listening comprehension tests were not developed for assessing children’s listening comprehension in the classroom environment, likely due to its complexity. They are therefore limited for understanding the demands of classroom listening. Considerations for the development of future classroom listening comprehension tests such as using audio-visual recordings and realistic classroom noise are discussed while considering test sensitivity and reproducibility.