Browsing by Subject "Reading comprehension"

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
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    Direct and indirect effects of textbook modality on adolescents' reading engagement and comprehension
    (2013-05) Scholin, Sarah E.
    This research evaluated the affordances of iPads related to adolescent comprehension and engagement. Specific research questions were guided by a framework of reading engagement in which classroom practices are theorized to have both a direct and indirect effect on comprehension through the mediating roles of motivations and strategic interaction with text (Guthrie, Wigfield, & You, 2012). Participants consisted of 281 9th grade students from two rural Midwest high schools with one-to-one iPad initiatives. Using a between-participants experimental design, students were randomly assigned to read informational text on either an iPad or paper and completed comprehension questions and motivation questionnaires. Half of the students in each modality condition were randomly assigned to receive a review lesson on strategy use and annotation to encourage strategy use while reading. The effects of text modality and strategy review on comprehension of text, observable strategy use, and motivation variables were examined. Results revealed no differences in comprehension or motivational variables among students who read on iPads and students who read on paper. However, students who read on paper were more likely to use observable strategies while reading, with this difference decreasing among students who received a strategy review lesson. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.
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    The effects of causal relations and propositional density in Texts on item difficulty in reading comprehension assessment
    (2013-04) Swinburne Romine, Russell E.
    This research study examines the relationship between reader-level variables and text-level variables in a large-scale assessment of reading comprehension for Grade 10 students in Minnesota, administered in 2006. Six narrative passages and the associated multiple-choice reading comprehension items were examined and coded for variation in propositional density, causal connectedness, cognitive demand, item type, and distracter features. A series of Rasch models were used to calculate individual item difficulty for different groups of students, divided on proficiency level. The relationship between student proficiency, item characteristics and item difficulty was investigated. A significant effect of whether multiple choice items demanded an inference from readers on item difficulty was observed for low-ability readers. Significant effects were also observed for the presence of highly causally connected, true but irrelevant information in item distracters for students of each of four categories of ability level. Results are interpreted in light of a causal model of reading comprehension, the Construction-Integration Model and the Simple View of Reading.
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    The effects of questioning during and after reading on inference generation between skilled and less-skilled comprehenders.
    (2011-09) Carlson, Sarah Elizabeth
    Reading comprehension involves several cognitive factors during and after reading and differs between readers with different comprehension skills. The purpose of this study was to examine cognitive factors, specifically inference generation, during and after reading between skilled and less-skilled comprehenders. Additionally, other cognitive factors may influence skilled and less-skilled comprehenders' inference generation, and working memory (WM) may be a potential factor. A review of the adult-focused and children-focused literature for the research and theories in inference generation, WM, and comprehension skill are presented. Participants in this study included 61 third- through fifth-grade skilled and less-skilled comprehenders. Inference generation was examined during and after reading using a causal questioning technique and sentence verification task (SVT). Responses from recall were also collected to assess comprehension of the texts used in this study, and WM was examined as a moderator variable. Overall, there was an effect of questioning on some types of inferences generated and recall for skilled and less-skilled comprehenders, and WM appeared to moderate inference generation for skilled-comprehenders; however, there was no effect of type of comprehender on SVT responses. These findings are discussed in terms of maintaining local and global coherence during and after reading in order to develop a coherent representation of a text; updating after reading; and the role of WM during inference generation between skilled and less-skilled comprehenders.
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    The influence of prereading and recall instructions on attention and memory for scientific seductive text.
    (2011-09) Mensink, Michael Craig
    The question of how interesting but irrelevant textual information (i.e., seductive details) in a multi-topic scientific text influences the processes and products of comprehension was explored in three experiments. In Experiment 1, participants read a multi-topic informational text on lightning and tornado formation and rated each sentence for importance and interest. In Experiment 2, participants read the text with or without seductive details and completed a free recall. Participants who received the seductive details version of the text demonstrated a seductive details effect (e.g., Harp & Mayer, 1998; Peshkam, Mensink, Putnam, & Rapp, 2011), in which they recalled significantly less important information compared to controls. In Experiment 3, participants read the seductive details version of the text while wearing a head-mounted eye tracker. Prior to reading the text, participants also received prereading questions designed to focus their attention on one topic (e.g., lightning formation) over the other (e.g., tornado formation). In addition, participants completed a test of their working memory capacity (WMC) in the form of a reading span test (RSPAN), and recieved either a general instruction to freely recall the text or two specific recall instructions for each topic. In terms of online processes, the results indicated that participants allocated additional attention to information introduced by the prereading instructions, in the form of increased reinspections and look-backs. However, attention to seductive details was not reduced by these instructions. In terms of offline products, participants recalled significantly more information from the text that was introduced by the prereading instructions, compared to information that was not mentioned in those instructions. Seductive details were also well recalled for participants receiving free recall instructions. Yet, production of seductive details was significantly reduced when participants received specific recall instructions. In addition, participants with high working memory capacities also produced significantly less seductive content as compared to participants with low working memory capacities. These findings suggest that although seductive details are irresistibly alluring during comprehension, that allure might not be similarly demonstrated upon recall-driven reflection.
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    Relations between CBM (Oral Reading and Maze) and Reading Comprehension on State Achievement Tests: A Meta-Analysis
    (2017-09) Shin, Jaehyun
    The purpose of this study was to examine the validity of two widely used Curriculum-Based Measurement (CBM) in reading – oral reading and maze task – in relation to reading comprehension on state tests using a meta-analysis. A total of 61 studies (132 correlations) were identified across Grades 1 to 10. A random-effects meta-analysis was conducted to estimate the average correlations between the two CBMs and reading comprehension on state tests, and to analyze the effects of potential moderating variables (characteristics of study, students, CBM, and state tests). Results revealed that the average correlation for oral reading was significantly larger than that for maze when all grade levels were included together in the analysis. When grade levels were separated, the difference between average correlations was only at the higher grades (Grades 4-10), favoring oral reading. In terms of correlations by grade level, oral reading and maze showed a similar pattern; that is, correlations were comparable across elementary grades, but decreased for secondary grades. In addition to the type of CBM and grade level differences, type of publication, development type of state tests (commercial versus state-developed), and time interval between CBM and state tests were significant sources of variance in correlations. Implications for research and educational practice are discussed highlighting the somewhat different conclusions from previous literature, especially regarding the use of CBM for older students.
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    Teaching Reading without “Teaching Reading”: Content-Area Reading Instruction in the Mainstream Classroom
    (2014) Olsen, Angela; Brice, Lynn
    Research has shown that the implementation of content-area reading strategies is beneficial for secondary students. The purpose of this study was to discover the perceptions and experiences of content-area teachers regarding reading comprehension strategies in mainstream classrooms to help struggling readers. Interviews were conducted with seven secondary teachers of social studies and science classes. The interviews were designed to discover what kind of training teachers have received for implementing reading comprehension strategies within their standard curriculum, what continuing support is available to them, and what specific strategies they are using. Findings in this study suggest that more reading training is becoming available, though many teachers remain unaware of how to appropriately utilize their school’s reading resources, and that teachers are using a small number of comprehension strategies.