A comparison of the effects of students’ expository text comprehension strategies

Abstract

This experimental study examined students' comprehension of challenging, ecologically valid, history text. We examined the benefits of the elaborative interrogation (EI) comprehension strategy and the main idea (MI) strategy when compared to an independent study (IS) control. This work extended previous research and explored the ecological validity, generalizability, and utility of EI as an effective comprehension strategy. Dependent measures included a matching test, text-explicit recognition items, text-implicit recognition items, and a situational interest measure. Demographic data were collected for descriptive purposes and prior domain knowledge was used as a control variable. Findings indicated few differences between the MI and EI comprehension strategies in learning outcomes. Additional results, however, suggested potential for the EI strategy to increase interest when students have prior knowledge of the text topic. Keywords Comprehension strategies Á Elaborative interrogation Á Main idea Á Text comprehension Á Situational interestStudents in secondary social studies classes and college level general education courses are required to read lengthy, expository texts about the history of civilizations and countries, people and places, eras and events. From this reading they are expected to understand chronology, infer meaning, draw comparisons, analyze cause and effect, evaluate past decisions, and thoughtfully consider future implications. Despite current moves toward social studies curriculum reform (e.g.

The effects of levels of elaboration on learners’ strategic processing of text

“…Although we did not provide specific or extensive training, for each of the conditions in which participants generated a response, we provided a sample paragraph with sample responses as a model of the type of response expected from participants. This strategy is consistent with these studies and other previous research on strategy prompts (Ramsay et al 2009;Spires and Donley 1998).…”

“…In the absence of further strategy instruction specifically designed to address the particulars of the strategies used here, it is likely that participants were simply not able to draw on their prior experiences of generating elaborations for text. Future research should explore what type of instruction would be required for deep learning to occur using these strategies (Ramsay et al 2009). …”

The Effects of Orienting Instructions on Readers’ Ability to Recall Literal Information from Expository Texts

“…Furthermore, readers' interests and motivation to read are thought to be strongly correlated with their comprehension of a given passage (Guthrie, Hoa, Wigfield, Tomks & Perencevich, 2006;Middleton, 2011;Schommer, 1989). In particular, situational interest, which is assessed for a particular reading passage, is thought to be related to superficial reading comprehension (Minguela et al, 2015;Ramsay et al, 2010).…”

“…Many studies have focused on the effects of goal-orienting instructions, such as pre-reading questions, have on reading comprehension (Glenberg, Sanocki, Epstein & Morris, 1987;Llorens, Cerdan & Vidal-Abarca, 2013;Schommer, 1989;Walczyk & Hall, 1989), and on reading recall (McCrudden, Magliano & Schraw, 2010;Minguela, Sole & Piescle, 2015;Ramsay, Sperling & Dornisch, 2010;Rupp, Ferne & Choi, 2006;Van Den Broek, Lorch, Linderholm & Gustafson, 2001). For instance, Van Den Broek and colleagues (2001) instructed participants to either read for entertainment or read for a test.…”

“…In contrast, when instructions emphasize certain segments of the text, there is a risk that a mismatch may arise between the orienting instructions and the demands of the subsequent recall task, reducing the readers' performance in the subsequent recall tasks (Ramsay et al, 2010). To summarize, the effects of orienting instructions on a reader's ability to recall information from texts might depend on whether the instructions encourage the development of a global representation or emphasize specific information in a particular reading passage.…”