The Contribution of Lower-Level Processing to Foreign Language Reading Comprehension with Chinese EFL Learners

Abstract

This paper reports an ongoing research project, which investigates the two competing hypotheses: whether inefficient lexical access (LA) and small working memory (WM) inhibit text comprehension in FL reading (inhibition hypothesis) or whether readers could use strategies to compensate for processing and language problems so that text comprehension are not influenced much (compensation hypothesis). Four hundred and two Chinese university students in their second year participated in the study. The larger project adopted a mix-method design collecting both quantitative and qualitative data, but the focus of the presentation is only on the quantitative data. The reading text were analyzed using RUMM2030 for both checking both misfitting items and persons. The data were then analyzed by doing correlation analyses between LA, WM and reading comprehension in two reading conditions: untimed reading and timed reading. Firstly, there was no significant correlation between students’ LA and reading comprehension in untimed reading condition (r = −.09, p = .07), whereas a small and negative relationship was found between LA and reading comprehension in timed reading (r = −.22, p < .01). Secondly, WM showed to be correlated positively with students’ reading comprehension in both untimed (r = .11, p < .05) and timed reading conditions (r = .20, p < .01), both the values of correlation were small. The magnitude of correlation between WM and comprehension in untimed reading was smaller than that between WM and comprehension in timed reading. The preliminary results from the quantitative data seem to support the compensation hypothesis that when readers are allowed sufficient time, inefficient word processing and small working memory do not inhibit text comprehension in FL reading.