Comprehension in proficient readers: The nature of individual variation

Abstract

Individual-difference research on reading comprehension is challenging because reader characteristics are as correlated with each other as they are with comprehension. This study was conducted to determine which abilities are central to explaining comprehension and which are secondary to other abilities. A battery of psycholinguistic and cognitive tests was administered to community college and university students. Seven constructs were identified: word decoding, working-memory capacity (WMC), general reasoning, verbal fluency, perceptual speed, inhibition, and language experience. Only general reasoning and language experience had direct effects; these two variables accounted for as much variance in comprehension as did the complete set. Direct effects of WMC and decoding were found only when general reasoning and language experience were deleted from the models. The authors question the need to include WMC in our theories of variability in adult reading comprehension and highlight the need to understand precisely how vocabulary facilitates comprehension.

Individual differences in decoding skill, print exposure, and cortical structure in young adults

“…Overall, the observed correlations are consistent with many other studies that have measured a broad range of literacy skills (e.g. Braze et al, 2007Braze et al, , 2016Cromley, Snyder-Hogan, & Luciw-Dubas, 2010;Freed et al, 2017;Kukona et al, 2016;Li et al, 2017;Long, Prat, Johns, Morris, & Jonathan, 2008;Macaruso & Shankweiler, 2010;Van Dyke et al, 2014). Finally, we assessed multicollinearity among the predictors by calculating their condition numbers (κ).…”

“…Although our own battery of assessments is more extensive than previous work, it is hardly exhaustive; large-scale behavioural studies typically administer many more assessments than were included in our project. For example, studies such as Van Dyke et al (2014) and Freed et al (2017) both assessed performance on more than two dozen measures. The benefits offered by such an approach are twofold.…”

Individual differences in decoding skill, print exposure, and cortical structure in young adults

“…Although our own battery of assessments is more extensive than previous work, it is hardly exhaustive; large-scale behavioral studies typically administer many more assessments than were included in our project. For example, studies such as Van Dyke, Johns, & Kukona (2014) and Freed and colleagues (2017) both assessed performance on more than two dozen measures. The benefits offered by such an approach are twofold.…”

“…Finally, it is well known that performance on individual difference measures tends to be correlated, sometimes highly, making it difficult to uniquely relate specific constructs to dependent variables (for discussion see Freed, Hamilton, & Long, 2017). However, neither the number nor the magnitude of bivariate correlations is an unambiguous indicator of troublesome multicollinearity: strongly correlated measures may not induce problematic multicollinearity, while high multicollinearity can occur even when all bivariate correlations in a set of variables are quite low (Belsley, 1991a; Flom, 1999).…”

Psychometric Models of Individual Differences in Reading Comprehension: A Reanalysis of Freed, Hamilton, and Long (2017)

“…The merits and limitations of both approaches will be considered, with attention to current best practices. As a means of illustrating these points, we critique the data analytic approach adopted by Freed et al (2017) and illustrate how different modeling approaches can lead to different theoretical conclusions about the PROCESSES UNDERLYING READING COMPREHENSION 4 contributions of domain-general versus domain-specific influences on reading comprehension.…”