Reading Comprehension and Eye-Tracking in College Students: Comparison between Low- and Middle-Skilled Readers

Abstract

Efficient reading begins with text decoding and finish with comprehension. When there is a lack of reading comprehension (RC), the person is likely unable to use the main information of a text in everyday life; something related to non-functional literacy. Using eye-tracking technique, some researchers have found that regressions (return to previously read text) are a common behavior during reading, and sometimes they are used as a rereading strategy to improve RC. However, the utility of regressions to improve RC depends on the reader's skills. Based on these data, the main purpose of this study was to compare regressions and RC between low-and middle-skilled readers. Eighteen college students completed a computerized version of a middle school student's RC test (ECOMPLEC-Sec) while their eye movements were recorded. We found a statistically marginal relation between regressions during narrative text and text-based RC on low-skilled readers. However, our results indicated no relation between number of regressions and RC regardless of level of reading competency. The necessity of new research to increase the knowledge of RC using eye-tracking parameters was discussed.

Evaluating computer science students reading comprehension of educational multimedia-enhanced text using scalable eye-tracking methodology

“…To assess the level of readers and their abilities in reading comprehension, we used the outputs of Abundis-Guitiérrez et al (2018), who conducted psychological research on groups of less and more skilled readers. However, their experiment results did not find a causal relationship between the number of regressions and reading comprehension.…”