A Taxonomy of Skills in Reading and Interpreting Fiction

Abstract

The skills in the interpretation of fiction proposed in this paper are defined by seven item types, which can be discriminated from each other and organized taxonomically through logical analysis. This research examines the hierarchical and taxonomic characteristics of item types within four question sets. The question sets, based on four different texts, were administered to between 77 and 127 students each. Responses were scored by independent raters using a partial credit scoring design. These data were analyzed with the Rasch Rating Scale model. The results confirm experimentally the hierarchical and taxonomic nature of the item types.