Dual Modality Effects on College Students’ Comprehension of Short Texts during a Simulated Self-Study Session

Abstract

College students enrolled in a reading support course were asked to (a) read a short text, (b) listen to a second text, and (c) read + listen to a third text and answer multiple-choice comprehension questions about each text. Each condition employed a self-study format allowing for constant availability of text input and extra time to revisit text content for further study. Contrary to expectations that students’ comprehension of texts would benefit from the dual modality presentation of the text in the read + listen combo condition, this condition produced the lowest comprehension scores, suggesting our students might have experienced interference from dual modality processing of texts even when they had extra time to revisit text input. Further revealed were indications of listening comprehension possibly setting the upper limit of our sample’s comprehension capacity. Limitations and implications for college teaching research and practice are discussed.