Sex Differences in Foreign Language Text Comprehension: The Role of Interests and Prior Knowledge

Abstract

The scores obtained by female students on the national foreign language examinations in the Netherlands have been slightly but consistently lower than those of male students. The present research among 2980 high school students tested the hypothesis that, owing to sex differences in prior knowledge and interests, the topic of a text is an important factor explaining these sex‐based differences. To measure prior knowledge, the students' reading and TV habits, academic subject choice, self‐reported knowledge, and interest concerning the text topics were assessed. A total of 11 different English reading passages—including 5 texts with a “male” topic, and 6 texts with a “female” topic—were selected. On all the male reading comprehension measures, and on five of the six female tests, significant differences were found in the expected direction. Moreover, these sex‐based differences appeared to be largely due to sex differences in reading habits. Although there was only an indirect relation between the students' reading preference and the text comprehension score on related topics, this study suggests that differences between the sexes in prior knowledge contribute to sex differences in foreign language reading comprehension.