The present research examined the impact of technology on reading comprehension. While previous research has examined memory for text, and yielded mixed results of the impact technology has on one's ability to remember what they have read, the reading literature has not yet examined comprehension. In comparing paper, computers, and e-readers, results from this study indicated that these three different presentation modes do not differentially affect comprehension of narrative or expository text. Additionally, readers were not consistently compensating for difficulties with comprehension by engaging in different reading behaviors when presented with text in different formats. These results suggest that reading can happen effectively in a variety of presentation formats.
The present research explored the awareness that readers have of the difficulty of negative text and aimed to determine whether rereading could impact comprehension and metacomprehension. Participants read passages that sometimes contained negative words such as 'no' and 'not', rated their comprehension, and answered a comprehension question about the passage. Half of the passages were read twice and rated again before the participant was prompted to answer a comprehension question. Results showed that passages that were read twice were rated as easier to understand, and questions that corresponded with those passages were answered with higher accuracy as well. However, these improvements were not exclusive to negated passages. And, while participants were aware that the negative passages were harder to comprehend, this understanding did not aid in heightened comprehension of the negative text. Rereading was demonstrated to be a helpful strategy overall but was not sufficient to specifically help with negation.
What is already known about this topic• Negation is a type of text construction that is difficult for readers to process and remember. • Readers are aware that negation is difficult, but they are often unable to use this awareness to do anything to improve their comprehension of the text.• Readers have shown some success in improving their comprehension and metacomprehension of text by rereading the text.
What this paper adds• While it would seem intuitive that rereading a difficult text construction, like negation, would lead to a reader's improvement in text comprehension, this was not the case. The improvements that were demonstrated in comprehension were not specific to negative passages.• However, rereading did help readers improve metacomprehension for negated text, which indicates that while readers are more aware of the difficulty they are having with the text, they are still having difficulty.• Unfortunately, coupled with the finding that improvements in comprehension were not specific to negated text, it becomes apparent that the awareness
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