A New Audio Testing System for the Newly
Blind and the Learning Disabled to Take the
National Center Test for University Admissions
Mamoru Fujiyoshi1 and Akio Fujiyoshi2
1

Research Division, the National Center for University Entrance Examinations
2-19-23 Komaba, Meguro, Tokyo, 153-8501, Japanfujiyosi@rd.dnc.ac.jp
2
Department of Computer and Information Sciences, Ibaraki University
4-12-1 Nakanarusawa, Hitachi, Ibaraki, 316-8511, Japanfujiyosi@mx.ibaraki.ac.jp

Abstract. A new audio testing system was developed for the newly
blind and the learning disabled (dyslexia) who have diﬃculties with reading braille or print-format tests. The system enables them to take the
National Center Test for University Admissions. The system was developed primarily on a tablet PC and presents not only speech sound but
also document structures and ﬁgures from the test.

1

Introduction

The National Center Test for University Admissions is the joint achievement
test for admissions into all national and local public universities as well as many
private universities in Japan. Every year, about 600,000 students take the National Center Test. As for test-takers with disabilities, special arrangements regarding test media such as large print test and braille-format test have been
administered [7]. Audio tests, however, have not been administered yet. There
are diﬃculties in administering ordinary types of audio tests for the National
Center Test because the documents are very long and the document structurevery complicated. This study contributes to the development of a new audio
testing system for the newly blind and the learning disabled (dyslexia) who havediﬃculties with reading braille or print-format tests.
Ordinarily, audio tests are administrated by means of readers [4], audio cassettes [2,9,10], DAISY (Digital Audio Accessible Information System) [3] or computers [1]. The simplest procedure is to recruit readers and have them readout a test booklet to a test-taker directly, but it is not easy to ﬁnd enoughwell-trained readers for each test-taker. And for fairness and security reason, it
might be necessary to supervise such readers by another person. Audio cassettes
make it easy for test-takers to listen to the test sequentially, but it is inconvenient to go directly to a particular section of the test unless rewinding and fastforwarding can be done easily. Recently, it has become possible to design audio
tests by means of DAISY, which is a world standard audio system for people with
K. Miesenberger et al. (Eds.): ICCHP 2006, LNCS 4061, pp. 801–808, 2006.
c Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006


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M. Fujiyoshi and A. Fujiyoshi

visual disabilities, taking the place of audio cassettes. DAISY oﬀers audio tests
in CD quality, and test-takers can listen to the test from any point, such as
from an underlined or blank part, without delay. They can also use the talkspeed-control function, by which the speech sound can be adjusted from 1/2
to 3 times normal speed. As a result of the experiments with the Law School
Aptitude Test [6] and the National Bar Examination [5] of Japan, we found thatthe DAISY tests were almost equal to braille-format tests for the blind in design
and administration. However, DAISY is not convenient enough for tests whichhave complicated document structure. A computer test is also inappropriate fortests written in Japanese even with advanced screen-reader software for the blind
because of the ambiguity of the reading of Kanji in Japanese sentences. Screenreader software can not always convert Japanese sentences into correct Japanese
speech.
We developed a new audio testing system utilizing a tablet PC which enables
the newly blind and the learning disabled to take the National Center Test
for University Admissions. This system presents the document structure of test
problems with characters or icons on a computer screen for the learning disabled
and on braille paper for the newly blind. Test-takers can take a variety of tests
by using the electronic pen of a tablet PC.
This paper is organized as follows: Section 2 contains a summary of the system;
Section 3 provides a system evaluation by experiment; and Section 4 is theconclusion.

2

The Tablet PC Audio Testing System

2.1

Composition

We developed a new audio testing system utilizing a tablet PC. The compositionof the system for the newly blind is slightly diﬀerent from the one for the learning
disabled.
For the newly blind, the composition of the system is illustrated in Fig. 1. The
system consists of a PC (FMV STYLISTIC, Fujitsu Inc.), an A3 tablet (Intuos3,
Wacom Inc.), a ten-key pad (NT-1U, Sanwa Supply Inc.), and a speaker withampliﬁer (SRS-T88, Sony Corp.). On the A3 tablet, a sheet of braille paper, on
which the document structure for each problem or ﬁgure has been embossed bya braille printer, is mounted. With just an electronic pen, test-takers can listen
to speech sound from any part of the document and answer the questions. The
ten-key pad is used to adjust the speed and volume of speech sound.
For the learning disabled, the system consists only of a tablet PC (VAIO PCVLX80, Sony Corp.). On the LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) screen of the tablet
PC, the document structure is displayed. Speech sound comes from speakers
mounted on both sides of the LCD screen.
The software was exclusively developed at the National Center for University
Entrance Examinations to run on Windows XP Tablet PC Edition with VisualC++ 6.0 and Windows Media Player SDK 10 (Microsoft Corp.).

A New Audio Testing System

803

PC

tabletbraillepaper

tenkeypad

Fig. 1. The composition of the system for the newly blind

2.2

Usage

The system displays the document structure of each problem, which enables atest-taker to conﬁrm the document structure throughout the answering process
and to point to any position of document to listen to the speech sound.
Fig. 2 is an example of the document structure displayed on the LCD screen
for the learning disabled. For the newly blind, on the other hand, only thecharacter part of the document structure was embossed by a braille printer,
which is mounted on the tablet. In Fig. 2, the ﬁrst line shows the subject name‘Gensha 1’ and the problem number ‘Q1’. The upper part shows the document
structure of the theme document of the problem. Each line ‘p1’-‘p4’ corresponds
to a paragraph in the theme document. The symbol ‘s’ represents a sentence
in a paragraph, and the symbols ‘a’-‘g’ represent underlined parts of the theme
document. The lower part shows the document structure of the questions of the
problem. Each line ‘q1’-‘q7’ corresponds to a question. The symbols ‘[]1’-‘[]7’

Fig. 2. An example of the document structure displayed on the LCD screen

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M. Fujiyoshi and A. Fujiyoshi

represent answer items, and the symbols ‘1’-‘6’ represent possible answers for ananswer item.
To produce speech sound, a test-taker just touches the symbol of either aparagraph, a sentence, an underlined part of theme document, an answer item
or a possible answer with the electronic pen. To stop the sound, a test-taker
touches the blank part of the screen with the electronic pen.
To answer a question, the tail switch of the electronic pen is used. When atest-taker successively touches the symbol of an answer item and the symbol of a
possible answer with the tail switch of the electronic pen, an answer is recordedby the system, and a conﬁrmation message is produced, for example, “On answer
item No. 1, choice No. 2 was selected.”
The ten-key pad is used to start the test, to suspend the test, to end the test,
and to adjust the speed and volume of speech sound. When the ten-key pad isused, a conﬁrmation message is produced.
The answering process of a test-taker is automatically recorded with the time
whenever the electronic pen or the ten-key pad is used.

3

Evaluation Experiment

In order to evaluate the tablet PC audio testing system, an experiment was
conducted by comparing the tablet PC audio test with other test media such as
the braille-format test, the DAISY test, and the multimodal test of braille-format
and tablet PC audio test.
3.1

MethodTwo subject groups were assigned in this experiment, namely, a blind group anda non-disabled group. The blind group consists of 12 students from a high schoolfor the blind, and the non-disabled group, 28 average high school students.
The experimental design for the blind group was a repeated 4x4 Latin-square
method [8] because we could not use the same problem in diﬀerent test media
for the same person. The image of the experimental design for the Latin-square
method is shown on Table 1. There were 4 test media: the braille-format test,
the DAISY test, the tablet PC audio test, and the multimodal test for brailleformat and tablet PC audio test. There were 4 subject groups, i.e., the blindgroup was evenly divided into 4 subgroups. Four problems were prepared fromtests in “Contemporary Social Studies” previously used in the National Center
Test. The allotment of marks, number of characters, size of ﬁgures, and quantityof problems are shown on Table 2. The size of a ﬁgure is converted to a number of characters (the density of characters in the document × the area of theﬁgure).
The test procedure was administered without time limits. Blind subjects took
the braille-format test by braille booklets, the DAISY test by a DAISY player(Plextalk Portable Recorder PTR1, Plextor Inc.), the tablet PC audio test by
our system, and the multimodal test by using both the braille booklets and thetablet PC audio testing system. The behavior of blind subjects was observed by

A New Audio Testing System

805

Table 1. Image of the experimental design for the Latin-square method

Group 1
Braille Problem 1
DAISY Problem 2
Test MediaTablet Problem 3
Multi Problem 4

Subect Groups
Group 2
Group 3
Problem 2 Problem 3
Problem 1 Problem 4
Problem 4 Problem 1
Problem 3 Problem 2Group 4
Problem 4
Problem 3
Problem 2
Problem 1

Table 2. Allotment of marks, number of characters, size of ﬁgures, and quantity ofproblems
Problem 1
Problem 2
Problem 3
Problem 4
Total

Marks
20
20
20
20
80

Characters
3550
3314
4374
4141
15379

Figures
1196
177
1373

Quantity
3550
4510
4374
4318
16752

test monitors, and the answer-process time of blind subjects was recorded by
the monitors using stop watches. On the other hand, the non-disabled subjects
answered the same 4 problems using print-format tests. They recorded their own
time using stop watches.
3.2

ResultScore Distribution: For the blind group, the score distribution of the tablet
PC audio test was almost the same as those of the braille-format test, the DAISY
test and the multimodal test. The Box-and-whiskers plots [8] in Fig. 3 represent
the score distribution of each test media for the blind group, the distribution of
the total score of the four test media for the blind group, and the distribution of
the total score of the print-format test for the non-disabled group. The verticallines in the middle of the box plots indicate the median. The ‘+’ symbols inthe boxes are the mean. Table 3 is the result of the analysis of the variance ofthe score using the repeated Latin-square design [8]. There were no signiﬁcantmain eﬀects on score regarding all three factors: test media, subject group andproblems. The three-dimensional interaction was not signiﬁcant.
Though the median of the total score for the non-disabled group was about
6 marks out of 80 higher than that for the blind group, there was no signiﬁcantdiﬀerence compared to the Mann-Whitney test [8].
Distribution of the Answering Speed: For the blind group, the distributionof the answering speed for tablet PC audio test was also similar to those forthe braille-format test, the DAISY test and the multimodal test. The Box-andwhiskers plots in Fig. 4 represent the distribution of the answering speed of eachtest media for the blind group, the distribution of the total answering speed of the806

M. Fujiyoshi and A. Fujiyoshi
BrailleDAISY
Tablet PC
Multi
Blind
Nondisabled
040
Score (marks)

80

Fig. 3. Box-and-whisker plots for the score
Table 3. Result of the analysis of the variance of the score using the Latin-square
designSourceGroup
Media
ProblemGroup×Media×Problem
Error
Corrected Total

DF
3
3
3
6
32
47

Sum of Square
59.16541.379112.71639.067599.415851.741

Mean Square
19.72213.79337.5726.511
18.732

F Value
1.05
0.74
2.01
0.35

Pr > F
0.383
0.538
0.133
0.906

four test media for the blind group, and the distribution of the total answering
speed of print-format test for the non-disabled group. Here, answering speed
is deﬁned as the number of characters of problems (‘quantity’ in Table 2) per
minute to answer the problems for each person. Table 4 is the result of theanalysis of the variance of the answering speed for the repeated Latin-square
design. There were no signiﬁcant main eﬀects on answering speed regarding all
three factors: test media, subject group and problems. The three-dimensional
interaction among the three factors was not signiﬁcant.
We found that the median of the total answering speed for the non-disabledgroup was about 2.4 times faster than that for blind subject group. There wasa signiﬁcant diﬀerence in the distribution of the total answering speed between
the blind group and the non-disabled group according to the Mann-Whitney test
(p < 0.0001).
3.3

Discussion

The result of the evaluation experiment shows that the tablet PC audio test
and the DAISY test are almost equal to the braille-format test for the blind interms of score and answering speed without time limits. We also found that theA New Audio Testing System

807

BrailleDAISY
Tablet PC
Multi
Blind
Nondisabled
0
250
500
Answering Speed (characters/minute)Fig. 4. Box-and-whisker plots for the answering speed
Table 4. Result of the analysis of the variance on the answering speed using theLatin-square design
SourceGroup
Media
ProblemGroup×Media×Problem
Error
Corrected Total

DF
3
3
3
6
32
47

Sum of Square
3457.613
3013.639
4256.247
6435.548
64877.10882040.156

Mean Square
1152.538
1004.546
1418.749
1072.591
2027.410

F Value
0.57
0.50
0.70
0.53

Pr > F
0.640
0.688
0.559
0.782

answering speed of the print-format test for non-disabled test-takers is about
2.4 times faster than of the four test media for blind test-takers provided thatboth have the same achievement level. These ﬁndings are consistent with ourprevious results for the DAISY test in the Law School Aptitude Test [6] and the
National Bar Examinations [5].
The tablet PC audio testing system can be introduced to the National Center
Test if the system is improved. Though the blind subjects were not trained
well, they could take the tablet PC audio test with similar scoring ability andanswering speed as with the braille-format test.
With time limits, audio test may be more useful because audio test such as
the tablet PC audio test and the DAISY test have a talk-speed-control function.
The tablet PC audio test may be a more eﬀective test media than the DAISY
test when the document structure is complicated.
The tablet PC audio testing system enables the newly blind and the learning
disabled with reading diﬃculties to take tests eﬀectively. It is, however, advisablethat blind test-takers without reading diﬃculties choose test media from amongaudio tests and a braille-format test because they have studied with braille textbooks and taken braille-format tests in quizzes and term examinations.

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M. Fujiyoshi and A. Fujiyoshi

Conclusion

We developed this new audio testing system utilizing a tablet PC for the newly
blind and the learning disabled who have diﬃculty reading long documents.
In most advanced countries, audio tests are prepared for the newly blind andthe learning disabled [2,9,10]. Ordinarily, they are administered with readers,audio cassettes, DAISY players or computers. Those methods, however, are inappropriate for the National Center Test for University Admissions because ofcomplicated document structure. Therefore, we designed this new audio testing
system that presents the document structure of a test.
As a result of the experiment for evaluation, we found that a tablet PC audio
test was almost equal to a braille-format test for the blind in terms of score andanswering speed.
To put the tablet PC audio testing system to practical use, we still have twochallenges: improvement of the management software for the electronic pen; anddevelopment of an authoring system for the tablet PC audio tests so that anyone
can easily produce material for audio tests.

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