Comprehension Questions Research Articles

A Survey Study of the Factors of School Life on Mental Health

This survey study explores the different factors contributing to the stress levels of students in a school district in California. This survey, distributed with the help of the district, focuses on the ways in which the students’ demographic information, academics, personal activities, and school life influence the mental health of the student body. Through the comprehensive questions asked in the various sections of the survey, the students were able to share their thoughts about the ways in which they believed different aspects of their experiences contributed to their well-being. Interestingly, the findings suggest that grade level, gender identity, and transportation methods primarily contribute to the stress levels of students. The study did find a correlation between the stress levels of the student and their satisfaction with their respective schools and teachers. However, more research should be done to determine the directionality of the relationship. Additionally, the study advocates for more communication among distinct school administrations and students, more up-to-date infrastructure, and opportunities for creative expression in order to nurture a safer and healthier environment for students to engage in to reach their full potential.

PENERAPAN SIMULASI SENAM KAKI DIABATES DALAM MENCEGAH KAKI DIABETIKUM PADA IBU AISYIAH

Diabetes mellitus is a chronic disease with increasing prevalence in Indonesia that is at risk of diabetic ulcer complications. This community service aims to provide education and simulation of diabetic foot exercises for the prevention of diabetic ulcers in the Aisyiah Sidoarjo Group with 30 participants. Community service is carried out using the following methods: 1) Counseling: Providing material on diabetes mellitus, complications, and the importance of diabetic foot exercises; 2) Demonstration: The community service team demonstrates the steps of diabetic foot exercises; 3) Simulation: Participants practice diabetic foot exercises with guidance from the community service team; 4) Evaluation: Assessment of participants' knowledge and skills before and after the activity. Participants were aged 40-65 years with 100% attendance. The results showed an increase in knowledge from 65% to 85% after the activity, which was achieved through comprehensive materials, questions and answers, and demonstrations. The activity succeeded in increasing participants' knowledge and skills in diabetic foot exercises. The community service activity of Education and Simulation of Diabetic Foot Exercises for the Prevention of Diabetic Ulcers in the Aisyiah Group has been successfully implemented. There was an increase in participants' knowledge and skills in performing diabetic foot exercises.

CLegal-QA: a Chinese legal question answering with natural language generation methods

Legal question answering (Legal QA) aims to provide accurate and timely answers to legal questions, significantly reducing the workload of legal professionals. This approach improves the efficiency of the judiciary and ensures prompt, professional legal assistance to the public. Currently, a major challenge is the absence of a large-scale dataset tailored for Chinese generative legal question answering. To address this, our study developed a comprehensive automatic question answering dataset for Chinese civil law, named cLegal-QA, which comprises 14,000 high-frequency questions from Chinese legal communities. This dataset spans various legal disputes and includes questions, disputes, scenarios, multiple lawyer responses, and gold-standard answers from human annotators. Additionally, we employed a generative QA model specifically designed for the cLegal-QA dataset. The results indicate that fully-supervised models, notably UniLM, T5, and BART, substantially outperform zero-shot models on this dataset, with ChatYuan being the most effective among the zero-shot models. Our analysis also reveals that answers labeled with 60–80% accuracy yield the highest efficiency. Furthermore, we evaluated the real-world performance of these models with expert validation and applied transfer learning to new civil disputes. While the QA models demonstrate commendable performance on the dataset, there is still potential for further improvement.

Investigation of text-based comprehension questions in emergency distance education during the COVID-19 pandemic

The purpose of this study was to analyze text-based comprehension questions asked by fourth-grade teachers in Turkish (L1) lessons in emergency distance education that started during the COVID-19 pandemic and to compare the results with those of other studies conducted in face-to-face educational settings. The text-based comprehension questions were evaluated in terms of different text types (narrative and expository) according to the distribution of the questions in the reading/listening process, answer source (whether the answer to the question was intratextual, extratextual, or intertextual), format, inference type, and teacher specificity. The study was designed to utilize a qualitative description method. Two fourth-grade teachers working in different primary schools were selected as participants. The data were collected through online lesson observations. A total of 56 lesson hours were observed and videotaped. The content analysis technique was applied for the analysis of the data. As in the results of previous studies, the present study, which was conducted in an emergency distance education environment, revealed that the text-based comprehension questions asked by teachers are generally asked after reading/listening, are answered with intratextual and extratextual sources, are prepared only in an open-ended question format, and are mainly of the propositional inference type. Additionally, it was found that teachers do not take the initiative to generate questions themselves and remain primarily dependent on the textbook.

Oral Reading Prosody and Comprehension in Persons With Aphasia: A Preliminary Investigation.

This study acoustically characterized the oral reading prosody of persons with aphasia (PWA) and neurotypical controls for a connected text and aimed to determine which prosodic features were most associated with performance on a reading comprehension task. Six PWA and six neurotypical, age- and education-matched controls participated in this preliminary study. Participants read Paragraph 3 of the Gray Oral Reading Tests-Fifth Edition aloud and subsequently answered five comprehension questions. A total of 11 measures related to phrasing, intonation, and expressivity were extracted using Praat for each participant in order for comparisons to be made across participant groups and associations examined with reading comprehension scores. The Mann-Whitney U test suggested a significant difference between PWA and control participants for intersentential pause durations, pausal intrusion frequency, and duration of pausal-pausal syllables. Although statistically nonsignificant, intersentential pause duration, pausal intrusion frequency, pausal intrusion duration, duration of prepausal syllables, and intensity amplitude following a syntactic juncture were all moderately correlated (all rs > .58) with comprehension of Paragraph 3 of the Gray Oral Reading Tests-Fifth Edition in PWA. All measures were weakly correlated with comprehension for the control participants. PWA demonstrated statistically significant longer durations for intersentential pauses and prepausal syllables, and a greater number of pausal intrusions. Interestingly, three of the five measures moderately correlated to comprehension were those that were statistically different between the two participant groups. As such, preliminary findings of this study warrant further investigation in a larger sample of PWA.

The facilitatory effect of modifications (semantic richness) on subsequent retrieval during language comprehension is age-invariant, but depends on level of engagement with task.

Past research has shown that semantically richer (i.e., modified) words are retrieved more easily at a subsequent point during language comprehension relative to less rich (i.e., unmodified) words, presumably due to more robust encoding of modified words. We investigated if this modification effect is modulated by age and/or the level of engagement with the task. Young and older participants (total N = 120) read sentences containing unmodified and premodified words followed by a critical verb that triggered their retrieval. The results showed that the retrieval benefit was not modulated by age but depended on the accuracy rates on comprehension questions (a proxy for task engagement), with the retrieval benefit emerging only for participants with lower accuracy rates. We replicated this engagement effect in a reanalysis of an independent, large data set from younger adults (N = 333). Based on these results, it is possible that when engagement is high, the memory representations associated with critical words may remain in the focus of attention when retrieval is being triggered, obviating a retrieval operation and eliminating the modification effect. However, when engagement is low, the critical memory representations may fade to a degree that the modification effect can emerge. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

CHALLENGES OF CLOSE READING APPROACH ON THE COMPREHENSION LEVEL OF JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL: A PURVIEW OF INQUIRY

The purpose of this study is to discover the challenges encountered by the teachers of a close reading approach on the comprehension level of junior high school students in selected public schools in Sulop Davao del Sur. The researcher was concerned when students showed poor performance on both written and verbal assessments. For example, students could not answer reader response questions with accuracy when assigned a reading with comprehension questions. They had difficulty recalling what they read and performing critical analyses when assigned written work. Their performance on both informal and formal assessments illustrated they did not have a deep understanding of the text (Allen, 2020; Blum, 2021). The participants of this study are the ten (10) English teachers in selected public schools in Davao region during this academic year 2023-2024. These English teachers were chosen as participants since they have lived experiences in teaching reading to junior high school students for a couple of years. As a result, analysis of the data revealed three main themes with four sub-themes each, to wit; “lack of vocabulary development” with sub-themes, use comprehension technique, insufficient reading materials, students become more active and relationship of teachers and students. The second theme immersed was “use multiple strategies” with sub-themes, give clear instructions, use basic guide in reading, motivate students to read and be compassionate in teaching reading. Lastly, the last theme immersed was “use reading comprehension in context with sub-themes, more classroom activities, use small group discussion, importance of teachers training and use standard lesson plan. KEYWORDS: Challenges, comprehension, close reading, approach, junior high school

Comprehensive Visual Question Answering on Point Clouds through Compositional Scene Manipulation.

Visual Question Answering on 3D Point Cloud (VQA-3D) is an emerging yet challenging field that aims at answering various types of textual questions given an entire point cloud scene. To tackle this problem, we propose the CLEVR3D, a large-scale VQA-3D dataset consisting of 171K questions from 8,771 3D scenes. Specifically, we develop a question engine leveraging 3D scene graph structures to generate diverse reasoning questions, covering the questions of objects' attributes (i.e., size, color, and material) and their spatial relationships. Through such a manner, we initially generated 44K questions from 1,333 real-world scenes. Moreover, a more challenging setup is proposed to remove the confounding bias and adjust the context from a common-sense layout. Such a setup requires the network to achieve comprehensive visual understanding when the 3D scene is different from the general co-occurrence context (e.g., chairs always exist with tables). To this end, we further introduce the compositional scene manipulation strategy and generate 127K questions from 7,438 augmented 3D scenes, which can improve VQA-3D models for real-world comprehension. Built upon the proposed dataset, we baseline several VQA-3D models, where experimental results verify that the CLEVR3D can significantly boost other 3D scene understanding tasks.

Brain activation patterns in normal hearing adults: An fNIRS Study using an adapted clinical speech comprehension task

ObjectivesUnderstanding brain processing of auditory and visual speech is essential for advancing speech perception research and improving clinical interventions for individuals with hearing impairment. Functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) is deemed to be highly suitable for measuring brain activity during language tasks. However, accurate data interpretation also requires validated stimuli and behavioral measures. DesignTwenty-six adults with normal hearing listened to sentences from the Oldenburg Sentence Test (OLSA), and brain activation in the temporal, occipital, and prefrontal areas was measured by fNIRS. The sentences were presented in one of the four different modalities: speech-in-quiet, speech-in-noise, audiovisual speech or visual speech (i.e., lipreading). To support the interpretation of our fNIRS data, and to obtain a more comprehensive understanding of the study population, we performed hearing tests (pure tone and speech audiometry) and collected behavioral data using validated questionnaires, in-task comprehension questions, and listening effort ratings. ResultsIn the auditory conditions (i.e., speech-in-quiet and speech-in-noise), we observed cortical activity in the temporal regions bilaterally. During the visual speech condition, we measured significant activation in the occipital area. Following the audiovisual condition, cortical activation was observed in both regions. Furthermore, we established a baseline for how individuals with normal hearing process visual cues during lipreading, and we found higher activity in the prefrontal cortex in noise conditions compared to quiet conditions, linked to higher listening effort. ConclusionsWe demonstrated the applicability of a clinically inspired audiovisual speech-comprehension task in participants with normal hearing. The measured brain activation patterns were supported and complemented by objective and behavioral parameters.

Difficulty-Controllable Reading Comprehension Question Generation Considering the Difficulty of Reading Passages

Difficulty-Controllable Reading Comprehension Question Generation Considering the Difficulty of Reading Passages

Testing AI on language comprehension tasks reveals insensitivity to underlying meaning

Large Language Models (LLMs) are recruited in applications that span from clinical assistance and legal support to question answering and education. Their success in specialized tasks has led to the claim that they possess human-like linguistic capabilities related to compositional understanding and reasoning. Yet, reverse-engineering is bound by Moravec’s Paradox, according to which easy skills are hard. We systematically assess 7 state-of-the-art models on a novel benchmark. Models answered a series of comprehension questions, each prompted multiple times in two settings, permitting one-word or open-length replies. Each question targets a short text featuring high-frequency linguistic constructions. To establish a baseline for achieving human-like performance, we tested 400 humans on the same prompts. Based on a dataset of n = 26,680 datapoints, we discovered that LLMs perform at chance accuracy and waver considerably in their answers. Quantitatively, the tested models are outperformed by humans, and qualitatively their answers showcase distinctly non-human errors in language understanding. We interpret this evidence as suggesting that, despite their usefulness in various tasks, current AI models fall short of understanding language in a way that matches humans, and we argue that this may be due to their lack of a compositional operator for regulating grammatical and semantic information.

Exploring the Effect of Plain Terminology on Processing and Comprehension of Administrative Texts in Spanish: A Self‐Paced Reading Experiment

ABSTRACTClear communication between government administrations and citizens is a challenge in democratic societies. Public administration texts often contain technical legal terms, essential to convey specialized knowledge with precision but often impenetrable to non‐experts. The plain language movement provides guidelines for simplifying legal‐administrative texts, recommending avoiding, explaining, or replacing technical terms with more transparent synonyms. This study assesses the effect of plain terminology on the processing and comprehension of administrative texts in Spanish. We conducted a self‐paced reading experiment in which participants (N = 117) read texts with legal‐administrative terms and their plain synonyms and answered comprehension questions. Results showed that plain terms significantly improved comprehension but did not reduce reading times. Mixed linear regression analysis revealed that other term properties—length, frequency, and comprehensibility—also influenced reading speed and comprehension. These findings suggest that these factors should be considered when proposing clear alternatives to legal terminology.

Reading Comprehension Questions in Fourth Grade Arabic Language Textbooks in Oman: An Analysis From the Perspective of Progress in International Reading Literacy Study

The study aimed to determine the extent to which the reading comprehension questions in the book, I Love My Language for the Fourth Grade, Part One and Two, consider the reading comprehension processes. It also measured the level of consideration of the reading comprehension questions for the reading comprehension processes by the international study Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS). The descriptive analytical method was used, and its tool was a content analysis card, which included four processes with 237 questions. The results showed that the book I Love My Language for the fourth grade included the four reading comprehension processes and carefully analyzed most of its sub-processes. It is recommended to reconsider the balance of processes in the book. This is important in light of the reading comprehension processes and the diversity of reading comprehension questions. It is necessary to take into account the four comprehension processes and their sub-processes in the two parts measured by the international study "PIRLS".

Abstract 4135353: Accuracy, Hallucinations, and Misgeneralizations of Large Language Models in Reviewing Cardiology Literature

Introduction: The text generation abilities of large language models (LLMs), such as ChatGPT, can streamline the process of research and potentially expedite reviewing literature. Methods: We evaluated the capabilities of LLMs and their major susceptibilities—hallucination and goal misgeneralization—in reviewing cardiology literature. We asked 30 comprehensive questions (n=600) regarding findings from notable cardiovascular studies and randomized controlled trials (n=20) from 2016-2020 to GPT-4, GPT-3.5, and LLaMa 3. The question groups followed a format where the initial question checked for accuracy in identification, second for misgeneralization, and third for hallucination (Table 1). All questions were communicated in individual interfaces of the models to retain independence and prevent bias. Responses were then reviewed for accuracy, misgeneralizations, and hallucinations. Results: GPT-4 and GPT-3.5 did not significantly differ in accuracy (55% vs. 40%, p=0.527), with a low association (φ=0.1) and an odds ratio (OR) of 1.83 (95% CI: 0.522-6.434). Similar results were observed between GPT-4 and LLaMa 3 (55% vs. 30%, p=0.201), with an OR of 2.85 (95% CI: 0.776-10.467). For generalization, GPT-4 and GPT-3.5 also did not significantly differ (30% vs. 35%, p=0.999), with a low association (φ=0.001) and an OR of 0.80 (95% CI: 0.211-2.998). Likewise, GPT-4 and LLaMa 3 showed no significant difference (30% vs. 25%, p=0.999), with an OR of 1.29 (95% CI: 0.319-5.174). For non-hallucinations, GPT-4 and GPT-3.5 did not significantly differ (30% vs. 60%, p=0.187), with a low association (φ=0.214) and an OR of 0.33 (95% CI: 0.088-1.256). Lastly, GPT-4 and LLaMa 3 showed no significant difference (30% vs. 25%, p=0.836), with an OR of 1.50 (95% CI: 0.36-6.13). Overall, all models did not differ in accuracy, misgeneralization, and hallucination. Given the moderate susceptibilities of these models, LLMs require more training before realistic usage in cardiology. Conclusions: LLMs show potential for identifying cardiology studies, but moderate hallucination and misgeneralization render them unsuitable for this purpose. Without resolution of susceptibilities (<5-10%), LLMs remain unrealistic for accurately reviewing literature.

How Teachers of English Use Writing Approaches when Teaching Composition Writing: The Case of Three Selected Secondary Schools in Central West Education Division-Malawi

Since the inception of teaching English as a Second Language (ESL) writing, educators and researchers have developed various writing approaches to address the needs of learners. This paper examines how English teachers apply these approaches in teaching ESL writing, focusing on key methodologies such as the product writing approach, genre writing approach, and process writing approach. The advantages and limitations of each approach are discussed. The study employed a qualitative research methodology, including in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, classroom observations, literature reviews, and the analysis of documents and students' exercise books. Content analysis was used to transcribe, categorize, and code the data. The study aimed to provide specific examples of empirical findings that illustrate effective strategies teachers use to enhance writing competence in composition instruction. The findings highlight that teachers predominantly use the product-oriented approach when teaching composition writing, particularly in tasks such as writing full-length compositions (350-500 words), answering comprehension questions, and summarizing texts. However, this approach often led to challenges, including students' inability to write meaningfully due to surface-level errors, a lack of ideas or vocabulary, poor organizational skills, and general difficulties in composing effectively. This study contributes to the understanding of how English teachers adapt writing approaches based on their specific contexts and the needs of their learners. The implications of these findings are also discussed

Do Caregivers Value the New Antiamyloid Treatments for Alzheimer's Disease More Than Home-Based Care?

ObjectiveThe new antiamyloid medications Lecanemab (Leqembi) and donanemab (Kisunla) are the first disease-modifying treatments for Alzheimer's disease (AD) to receive full FDA approval. However, some commentators question whether the drugs’ benefits outweigh their risks, burdens, and costs to patients. This study assessed the perceived value of these medications by asking caregivers of persons with AD to compare them to a widely used intervention in AD management: home-based care. DesignOnline survey (March 27th–April 17th, 2024) of 392 AD caregivers recruited via CloudResearch Prime Panels to match the U.S. public in education, household income, race, and ethnicity. The survey used vignettes describing antiamyloid medication and 25 hours/week of home-based care (estimated to be of similar monetary value). After rating the desirability of medication and home-based care, respondents indicated their preference for which intervention they wanted their loved one's insurance to cover. ResultsRespondents expressed a desire for their loved ones to receive both the medication and home-based care. Over half (56.9%) favored home-based care coverage. Those preferring medication coverage were more likely to believe its benefits outweigh its risks and burdens. Preference for medication coverage was also associated with being male, Hispanic, less educated, and correctly answering fewer comprehension questions. ConclusionsOur findings show most caregivers perceive modest clinical value in the novel antiamyloid therapies, and the decision to use these drugs will be preference-sensitive, pointing to the need for thorough informed consent discussions.

Integrating The Directed Reading Thinking Activity (DRTA) and The Survey, Question, Read, Recite and Reviews (SQ3R) Strategy to Enhance Students’ Reading Comprehension of Descriptive Text in Senior High School

This research aims to find out whether there is any significant improvement in students’ reading comprehension after the students were taught through the integrated Directed Reading Thinking Activity (DRTA) and Survey, Question, Read, Recite and Reviews (SQ3R) strategy. This is a quasi-experimental research design that conducts a quantitative method with 30 students as the samples. The students were tested through the reading test before and after the treatment namely the integrated DRTA with SQ3R. The data were statistically analyzed using paired samples t-test through SPSS version 22. The finding shows that there is a significant improvement in students’ reading comprehension after the students are taught using the integrated Directed Reading Thinking Activity (DRTA) and Survey, Question, Read, Recite and Reviews (SQ3R) strategy. The average score in the pre-test is 54.33, while in the post-test, it is 72.53. The sig (2-tailed) is 0.000 which is lower than 0.05. It means that there is a significant difference between the score of pre-test and post-test. Then, it is suggested for teachers to apply this new integrated strategy at class because this is a very good choice to embrace students to the effective steps in answering the questions of reading comprehension. Last, this research could be a reference for further researchers who want to conduct similar researches.

Accuracy and Consistency of Gemini Responses Regarding the Management of Traumatized Permanent Teeth.

The aim of this cross-sectional observational analytical study was to assess the accuracy and consistency of responses provided by Google Gemini (GG), a free-access high-performance multimodal large language model, to questions related to the European Society of Endodontology position statement on the management of traumatized permanent teeth (MTPT). Three academic endodontists developed a set of 99 yes/no questions covering all areas of the MTPT. Nine general dentists and 22 endodontic specialists evaluated these questions for clarity and comprehension through an iterative process. Two academic dental trauma experts categorized the knowledge required to answer each question into three levels. The three academic endodontists submitted the 99 questions to the GG, resulting in 297 responses, which were then assessed for accuracy and consistency. Accuracy was evaluated using the Wald binomial method, while the consistency of GG responses was assessed using the kappa-Fleiss coefficient with a confidence interval of 95%. A 5% significance level chi-squared test was used to evaluate the influence of question level of knowledge on accuracy and consistency. The responses generated by Gemini showed an overall moderate accuracy of 80.81%, with no significant differences found between the responses of the academic endodontists. Overall, high consistency (95.96%) was demonstrated, with no significant differences between GG responses across the three accounts. The analysis also revealed no correlation between question level of knowledge and accuracy or consistency, with no significant differences. The results of this study could significantly impact the potential use of Gemini as a free-access source of information for clinicians in the MTPT.

Second Language Listeners’ Emotion and Eye Gaze: A Web-Based Eye-Tracking Study

ABSTRACT While previous studies have shown that L2 listeners tend to focus more on videos with additional information, like presentation slides, the amount of eye gaze did not necessarily translate to higher listening test scores . Unlike previous research focusing on the benefits of additional visual cues, this study explores how emotions impact L2 listeners’ viewing behavior. Sixty-four adults completed the Foreign Language Listening Anxiety Scale (FLLAS), watched three academic lectures with their eye movements tracked, and answered comprehension questions. According to the results, listening anxiety was not a significant predictor of viewing videos. The relationship between viewing time and comprehension scores was non-significant. Interviews and survey responses highlighted diverse attitudes toward the videos. The findings suggest that individual differences in listening anxiety may not significantly influence how much participants look at the videos. Furthermore, adding context videos to listening tests to increase authenticity does not seem to affect comprehension scores, consistent with previous studies. The implications for developing video-based listening tests are discussed.

Beyond Words: Enhancing Clinical Guideline Comprehension With Icons.

The Grading Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluations (GRADE) framework is widely applied in clinical guidelines to facilitate transparent evidence evaluation. While developing Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) guidelines on the management of patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), panel members suggested developing and implementing a visual aid to enable quicker identification of key information by providers at bedside seeking guidance. We conducted a mixed-methods study evaluating the usability of a newly designed infographic/icon using a survey and focus groups. The survey incorporated a simulated COVID-19 IDSA guideline with and without the icon, followed by comprehension questions. Focus group discussions provided qualitative feedback on the GRADE methodology and icon usability. The survey was returned by 289 health care providers. There was no statistical difference in the correct response rates between icon-aided and non-icon-aided guideline questions (McNemar's chi-square test, P > .1 for both questions). Interactions with the icon notably increased the time taken and number of clicks required to respond to the first question (Wilcoxon signed-rank test, P < .01). In contrast, response time did not differ between versions for the second question (P = .38). Most subjects (85%) indicated that the icon improved the readability of the guidelines. A focus group follow-up suggested alternative designs for the icon. This study highlights the promise of iconography in clinical guidelines, although the specific icons tested did not measurably improve usability metrics. Future research should focus on icon design and testing within a formal usability framework, considering the impact of GRADE language on user experience.