Date of Award

3-1-1993

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Psychology

Abstract

The goal of the present study was to examine the efficiency of comprehension monitoring behavior in college students. Subjects read technical passages from a computer screen at their own rate. Immediately after reading each passage, subjects answered comprehension questions about information in the passage. Subjects were assigned to one of six reading conditions: (1) Inserted questions with the option to reread text spontaneously and look back in response to inserted questions. (2) Inserted questions with the option to reread spontaneously. (3) Inserted questions with the option to lookback in response to inserted questions. (4) Inserted questions without the option to reread or lookback. (5) Read the text without any inserted questions and no option of rereading, and (6) Read the text with no inserted questions but having the option to reread spontaneously. The study was designed to examine the degree to which the pattern (frequency and duration) of spontaneous rereading and/or lookbacks in response to inserted questions influence performance on the post-passage comprehension tests. Also, the present study explored the influence of individual differences in reading ability, learning processes, and personality characteristics on the efficiency of comprehension monitoring. The results indicate that reading behavior differs as a function of whether or not subjects were presented with inserted questions and the individual characteristics of the subjects. That is, less-skilled readers looked back at more pages and spent more time attempting to locate the answer to a question than did skilled readers. In addition, subjects who scored high on the methodical study and fact retention scales of the Inventory of Learning Processes looked back at more pages and spent more time trying to locate an answer to an inserted question than did subjects scoring low on methodical study and fact retention. Also, less-skilled readers are more apt to monitor their comprehension via text rereading when they are being questioned about the information in the text than when no questions are presented. Finally, it was found that the inserted questions did not have a facilitative effect on post-test question performance, in that no group differences on accuracy of post-test questions were observed.

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