Date of Award
5-1989
Document Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Bachelor of Science (BS)
Abstract
The present study examined prose processing In skilled and less skilled college readers. Subjects read 15 expository stories at their own rate one Idea unit at a time. Subjects were instructed to respond as quickly as possible to a tone that periodically occurred throughout the text. The tones occurred either 500 milliseconds or 1000 milliseconds after an Idea unit came on the screen. The passages varied In their length and level of difficulty. The findings of the present study indicate that less skilled readers required more cognitive capacity when processing the text than skilled readers, and that the largest amount of cognitive capacity expended occurred early on in processing, as demonstrated by subjects responses Increasing for the 500 mil !!second tone delay versus the 1000 millisecond tone delay condition. The results were consistent with the diminished capacity hypothesis for explaining text comprehension as a function of differences in reading ability.
Recommended Citation
Folstrom, Brenda M., "Processing capacity expended by skilled and less skilled college readers while reading narrative and expository text" (1989). Undergraduate Theses and Senior Projects. 203.
https://commons.und.edu/senior-projects/203