Text Comprehension Abilities Research Articles

Assessing text comprehension proficiency: Indonesian higher education students vs ChatGPT

AI has developed rapidly. However, AI research in applied linguistics in the field of language education in Indonesia still needs to be expanded to reading and writing skills. This research aims to explore students' skills in writing summaries and understanding the historical theme of the development of the Indonesian language with AI based on gender and university aspects. The quantitative method uses descriptive statistical analysis techniques, independent sample t-test, and Welch One-Way ANOVA. The research sample was 288 students from Makassar State University, Timor University, and Makassar Health Polytechnic. The results show that ChatGPT is significantly better at reprocessing text than students based on the aspects measured. ChatGPT outperforms almost every aspect of the assessment. However, in the MCT_Score aspect, the average for Universitas Negeri Makassar students is slightly higher than ChatGPT and the other two universities. Meanwhile, the Makassar Health Polytechnic almost matches the average ChatGPT score. Apart from that, the Universitas Timor average seems significantly different, with a score range of only 6.00 – 7.00. This research contributes to developing the Indonesian curriculum using Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology. The government can use these findings as a basis for making better policies to improve the quality of education. This research implies that Indonesian students have a gap in understanding texts compared to ChatGPT. The first implication is the need to revise and develop the educational curriculum. Therefore, future research can examine text comprehension abilities in more specific contexts, such as scientific texts, journalism, literature, or specific scientific disciplines. It can provide more detailed insight into students' strategies for overcoming difficulties in understanding texts. In addition, future research will be conducted on the broader impact of using Artificial Intelligence technology in language education on the development of student text comprehension and the potential social and ethical impacts.

Text Comprehension of Korean 3rd to 4th Graders of Typical Development and with Developmental Dyslexia Considering Semantic Knowledge

Objectives: This study aimed to examine text comprehension ability according to text comprehension modes and question types for typical developing (TD), developmental dyslexic without poor semantic knowledge (DD), and developmental dyslexic with poor semantic knowledge (DD-PS) groups in 3rd to 4th graders. Methods: Thirty-nine children participated, with 13 children in each group. To assess text comprehensive ability; narrative text with topics familiar to 3rd and 4th graders were provided at a decodable level for students with dyslexia. Text comprehension ability was examined according to text comprehension modes (oral reading, silent reading, listening) and question types (literal informative, inferential informative). Results: In the groups, there were no significant differences between TD and DD, but DD-PS showed lower performance than TD. In the text comprehension modes, oral reading resulted in a higher performance than silent reading and listening. According to the groups and question types, TD and DD-PS showed significant differences in literal informative questions. However, in inferential informative questions, all the groups showed significant differences. Conclusion: These results showed the possibility that developmental dyslexic children may have similar performance to typical developing children in literal informative questions if they are provided decodable and controlled texts. It seems that dyslexic children are in need of linguistic support as well as literacy support. Lastly, the importance of oral reading extends to 3rd and 4th graders with difficulty in reading as it aids in the efficient use of limited cognitive resources not only for reading but also for comprehending inferring information.

Le abilità di comprensione del testo in soggetti afasici adulti

Experiences of daily interactions with Italian aphasic subjects with unimpaired comprehension abilities according to standardized aphasia tests raise doubts about their actual and complete understanding of what has been said. The available standardized aphasia tests assess only the comprehension of phonemes and of isolated words and sentences, while no tools specifically developed for aphasics exist for the assessment of multiple sentence utterances and for interactions comparable to everyday real interactions. A more precise assessment of comprehension abilities would be necessary, in order to allow clinicians involved in the treatment of aphasia to develop treatment strategies aimed at improving actual comprehension in everyday interactions, as well as to make predictions and give indications for social and work reintegration after treatment. This paper presents the results of a research developed from the cooperation of clinicians (neurologist, physiatrists, speech therapist) and linguists aimed at collecting data on text and discourse comprehension abilities in 28 Italian aphasic adults with left-hemisphere brain damage presenting good performances in standardized comprehension subtests and 28 comparable non-aphasic adults.

Beyond text comprehension: exploring items’ characteristics and their effect on foreign students’ disadvantage in mathematics

National and International standardized assessments have shown sharp differences between native and foreign students’ performance in both text comprehension and mathematics. Based on the data gathered yearly by the INVALSI (Italian National Institute for the Evaluation of Educational Systems) at the national level, we performed a two-step analysis: (1) a regression analysis was first performed to quantify the effect of students’ abilities in reading and text comprehension (and their interaction with students’ citizenship status) on mathematical ability, given a set of covariates; then, (2) a differential item functioning (DIF) analysis was performed to explore the differences between the students depending on their citizenship status. The analysis, performed from a pseudo-longitudinal perspective to account for possible variations in the relationship between citizenship and mathematical performance by age, involved students in grades five (primary school), six, and eight (lower-secondary school). The regression analysis confirmed the relationship between text comprehension and mathematical ability, but the differential item functioning (DIF) analysis individuated additional items, showing statistically significant differential functioning by citizenship status regardless of whether high or low reading demands were placed on students.

Word Knowledge Dimensions in L2 Lexical Inference: Testing Vocabulary Knowledge and Partial Word Knowledge.

This study explored the role of word knowledge dimensions in second language (L2) word-meaning inference. College-level L2 learners (N = 121) participated in this study and completed a series of word knowledge tests including vocabulary size, word associates, morpheme-form knowledge, morpheme-meaning knowledge, morpheme discrimination, and morpheme recognition. Two modules of lexical inferencing tasks (pseudoword inference and real-word inference) were also administered to the participants. Through multivariate path analysis, the findings demonstrated that word-knowledge dimensions made a collective contribution to L2 lexical inference after text comprehension ability was controlled for. More critically, the study found that word associates and morpheme-form knowledge had the strongest predicting power among all word-knowledge components. Theoretical justifications were provided to discuss the mechanism of word knowledge and lexical inference. In addition, applied implications were discussed to shed light on L2 vocabulary instruction and learning.

Text Comprehension of Korean Developmental Dyslexic Children Considering Mode and Type of Texts

Objectives: Korean developmental dyslexic upper grade children’s text comprehension abilities were investigated considering the mode of texts (reading vs listening) as well as the type of texts (narrative vs expository).Methods: Sixteen 5th to 6th graders with developmental dyslexia (DD) and grade and cognition-matched typically developing children (TD) participated in 4 text comprehension tasks. Each child responded to 32 questions, 8 in each text, tapping comprehension of texts counterbalancing the effect of mode and type of texts.Results: First, children with DD performed lower than TD children in text comprehension, reflecting developmental dyslexic Korean children’s performance cross linguistically even with the high orthographic transparency of Hangeul. Second, children with DD performed better in the mode of reading compared to the mode of listening, which was the same as the TD children. Third, the effect of type of text was meaningful to only children with DD, while TD children’s performance between narrative and expository text was not different.Conclusion: Korean upper grade children with DD seemed to rely heavily on the mode of reading in comprehending texts similarly to their grade-matched children, while children with DD had greater difficulties in comprehending the expository texts both in reading and listening modes compared to the narrative texts. Each child with DD’s developmental level of the type and mode of texts needs to be considered to support his/her text comprehension abilities. Further studies need to be extended to the Korean language considering the type of texts with the DIER model.

Reading Comprehension Impairment in Children With Neurofibromatosis Type 1 (NF1): The Need of Multimodal Assessment of Attention

Attention span, which has been shown to have an impact on reading quality in many other conditions, is one of the main cognitive disorders of neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1). The aim of this work is to observe the impact of attention on reading comprehension, in NF1 and non-NF1 children. A multicenter, cross-sectional study was conducted on 150 children (8-12 years old) with or without NF1 (75 NF1 vs 75 non-NF1; 72 female, 78 male), matched for age, sex, handedness, and reading level, thus forming a continuum from good to poor readers in both NF1 and non-NF1 groups. Children with intellectual deficiency or neurologic or psychiatric disorder were excluded. Attentional skills were assessed by combining a parent questionnaire (Child Behavior CheckList) and a performance-based assessment (Conner's Continuous Performance Test-Second Edition). Reading comprehension was assessed through a standardized reading comprehension test (ORLEC Lobrot). The performance-based attention scores were associated with text and sentence comprehension ability (P = .0235 and P = .0164, respectively), while indirect questionnaire attention scores were only associated with sentence comprehension (P = .0263). For both groups, the correlations between questionnaire and performance-based measures were low. We have shown that reading comprehension is greatly influenced by attention in NF1 and non-NF1, even if predictors of good reading comprehension also include IQ score and reading accuracy. Indirect observer-rated questionnaires and direct performance-based measures of attention do not assess the same variables, are linked to different components of reading skills, and are not interchangeable assessments of attention difficulties. Both assessments are complementary and must be used simultaneously, leading to recommendations that support multimodal assessment of attention.

The Development and Evaluation of a New ASL Text Comprehension Task

Work in literacy education over the past two decades has radically shifted the notion of literacy, broadening it to include the ability to engage with compositions in various media (e.g., not only traditional texts like books and articles but also vlogs, blogs, graphic novels etc.). The notion that literacy can apply to non-written compositions has led some to wonder about the development of “reading comprehension” of texts in languages like American Sign Language (ASL) that do not have a written form. However, there are no existing assessments of ASL text comprehension. In this paper, we introduce the ASL-CMP, a new assessment tool to measure American Sign Language (ASL) text comprehension ability in deaf children. We first administered the task to a group of deaf children with deaf parents (n = 105, ages 8-18 years) in order to evaluate the reliability and validity of the task, and to develop norms. We found that the ASL-CMP has acceptable levels of internal consistency, difficulty, and discriminability. Next, we administered the task to an additional group of deaf children with hearing parents (n = 198, ages 8-18 years), and found that the ASL-CMP is sensitive to expected patterns: older children have better ASL text comprehension skills, literal questions are generally easier to answer than inferential questions, and children with early exposure to ASL generally outperform those with delayed exposure. We conclude that the ASL-text comprehension task is reliable and valid and can be used to characterize comprehension skills in ASL in deaf children ages 8-12.

Gender and Differences in School Performance in Reading and in Mathematics in Italian Schools

The paper takes gender into consideration in assessing if and how much this ascribed factor impacts school performance. The effects of gender connected to the type of school attended and to the geographical area of residence are analysed. Although there are gender gaps in literacy resulting from the OECD PISA - Programme for International Student Assessment’ study - with greater female proficiency in text comprehension and greater male ability in conceptual skill in mathematics - it seems, however, that these trends can be significantly mitigated by the type of school attended and by the geographical area of residence. The paper takes into consideration the Italian case.

STUDYING THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TEXT COMPREHENSION ABILITY AND GRADE TEN STUDENTS’ VOVABULARY ACQUISITION IN NARRATIVE TEXT

This research entitled “Studying the Relationship between Text Comprehension Ability and Grade Ten Students’ Vocabulary Acquisition in Narrative Text at SMK BHAKTI PERASADA, Bekasi” principally aims to investigate whether or not relationship between Text Comprehension Ability and grade ten Students’ Vocabulary acquisition in Narrative Text. The research samples were taken using cluster random sampling, with the total number of samples being 36 students. The location of this research was SMK BHAKTI PERSADA, Bekasi, conducted from 15th to 22nd November 2016. The research methodology adopted was the quantitative, correlational research. With the research design being ex post facto(after the fact).To collect data, the students were given objective test, numbering 68 items. The research data were analyzed descriptively and inferentially. The findings indicated that there was significant relationship between text comprehension ability and grade ten students’ vocabulary acquisition in narrative text at SMK BHAKTI PERSADA, Bekasi. It can be seen from the data analysis using Pearson’s Product Momentthat showed tobserved (4.93), which was higher than the critical value of ttable(at the significant level of 0.05 and df = 1/35), namely 2.03. It means that text comprehension ability has significant correlation with vocabulary acquisition in narrative text.

Productive Thinking in Place of Problem-Solving?

Summary Why and how is the Gestalt theorists’ concept of productive thinking particularly suitable for being applied to the educational question of how student motivation can be encouraged, thus providing an important condition for self-regulated, intrinsically motivated learning? An answer to this question has been sought using an approach to the fostering of text comprehension ability, based upon the features specific to productive thinking, originally identified by Wertheimer (1945) and Duncker (1935). Firstly, these specific features are dealt with and their educational implications compared with those deriving from the definitions of problem-solving used most frequently in educational research. Secondly, an analysis is made of the process by which the features specific to productive thinking are turned into the conditions for a kind of text analysis suitable for designing an instructional project aimed at enhancing text comprehension ability and, at the same time, encouraging intrinsic motivation and self-regulation on the part of the learner. Thirdly, an educational project centred on the thinking-aloud poor reader is described, where thinking aloud and reflection–response are combined in order to guarantee the maximum level of intrinsic motivation. In the concluding section, the most important features of the project are discussed in relation to reciprocal teaching and scaffolding.

The effect of read-aloud assistance on the text comprehension of dyslexic and non-dyslexic English language learners

One of the special arrangements in testing contexts is to allow dyslexic students to listen to the text while they read. In our study, we investigated the effect of read-aloud assistance on young English learners’ language comprehension scores. We also examined whether students with dyslexia identification benefit from this assistance differently from their peers with no official identification of dyslexia.Our research was conducted with young Slovenian learners of English who performed four language assessment tasks adapted from a standardized battery of Slovenian national English language tests. In a counter-balanced design, 233 students with no identified dyslexia and 47 students with dyslexia identification completed two language comprehension tasks in a reading-only condition, one task with read-aloud assistance and one task in listening-only mode. We used Generalized Linear Mixed-Effects Modelling (GLMM) to estimate accurately the effects of the mode of administration, dyslexia status, and input text difficulty, while accounting for error variance owing to random differences between students, texts, and questions.The results of our study revealed that young L2 learners with no dyslexia identification performed similarly in the three conditions. The read-aloud assistance, however, was found to increase the comprehension scores of dyslexic participants when reading difficult texts, allowing them to perform at the level of their non-dyslexic peers. Therefore, our study suggests that this modification of the test administration mode might assist dyslexic students in demonstrating their text comprehension abilities.

SUMMARIZING STRATEGY: POTENTIAL TOOL TO PROMOTE ENGLISH AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE (EFL) STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION AT A VOCATIONAL SCHOOL, VIETNAM

This paper reports a study which examines how students perceived the effects of the implementation of the summarizing strategy on English as a foreign language (EFL) reading comprehension at a Vietnamese university. Using a descriptive design, a survey and interviews were undertaken with students who were learning English at a vocational school of law at a province in the Mekong Delta,Vietnam. The findings indicated how students recognized the role of the summarizing strategy although there were some problems they had to encounter while reading, namely vocabulary and grammar. The findings of this study give rise to pedagogical implications for teachers with regard to designing timely and effective techniques for optimizing students’ text comprehension ability over time. Article visualizations:

Understanding the semantic functions of but in middle childhood: The role of text- and sentence-level comprehension abilities

This study examined Italian 7- to 9-year-olds’ understanding of the connective but when used to relate two events in sentences embedded in short stories. Performance was largely accounted for by the cognitive complexity of the sentence that included the connective and the salience of its meaning (confirmed in a second study with adults). Additional influences on children’s performance were the category of the story in which the critical sentence was embedded and the child’s text comprehension abilities. Further, by 9 years of age, performance resembled that of adults. These findings make an advance in explaining the role of information presented in a text at different levels and an individual’s linguistic abilities in children’s understanding of the connective but in stories and its development.

PENERAPAN SILENT READING TECHNIQUE DALAM MENINGKATKAN PEMAHAMAN TEKS BAHASA ARAB MAHASISWA (STUDI KASUS PADA MATA KULIAH BAHASA ARAB I DI PRODI PENDIDIKAN AGAMA ISLAM KELAS B)

This study is based on the finding that the Students of Islamic Education Department, Faculty of Islamic Studies, Indonesian Islamic University (UII), Academic Year 2015/2016 has a low ability to understand the Arabic text. It is felt necessary improve the ability to understand the Arabic text. As a real step been the application of silent reading technique. The results showed an increase in Arabic text comprehension abilities of students. As evidence is the increase in the their average result in the first cycle and the second cycle. This increase is accompanied by an increase in the quality and innovation of learning Arabic.

Reading skills in young adolescents with a history of Specific Language Impairment: The role of early semantic capacity

This study assessed the reading skills of 19 Spanish-Catalan children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI) and 16 age-matched control children. Children with SLI have difficulties with oral language comprehension, which may affect later reading acquisition. We conducted a longitudinal study examining reading acquisition in these children between 8 and 12 years old and we relate this data with early oral language acquisition at 6 years old. Compared to the control group, the SLI group presented impaired decoding and comprehension skills at age 8, as evidenced by poor scores in all the assessed tasks. Nevertheless, only text comprehension abilities appeared to be impaired at age 12. Individual analyses confirmed the presence of comprehension deficits in most of the SLI children. Furthermore, early semantic verbal fluency at age 6 appeared to significantly predict the reading comprehension capacity of SLI participants at age 12. Our results emphasize the importance of semantic capacity at early stages of oral language development over the consolidation of reading acquisition at later stages.Learning Outcomes: Readers will recognize the relevance of prior oral language impairment, especially semantic capacity, in children with a history of SLI as a risk factor for the development of later reading difficulties.

Primary school text comprehension predicts mathematical word problem-solving skills in secondary school

This longitudinal study aimed to investigate the extent to which primary school text comprehension predicts mathematical word problem-solving skills in secondary school among Finnish students. The participants were 224 fourth graders (9–10 years old at the baseline). The children’s text-reading fluency, text comprehension and basic calculation ability were tested in grade four. In grade seven and nine, their skills in solving mathematical word problems were assessed. Overall, the results showed that text comprehension in grade four of primary school predicts math word problem-solving skills in secondary school, after controlling for text-reading fluency and basic calculation ability. Among boys, good text comprehension skills in grade four predicted good math word problem-solving skills in grade seven. Among girls, good text comprehension skills in grade four predicted their subsequent mathematical word problem performance in grade nine. The practical implications of the results are discussed as well.

Sequential reasoning and listening text comprehension in preschool children

Both sequential reasoning skills and listening text comprehension are complex abilities that have their major development stages during the preschool period. Theoretically, an association between these skills could have its origins in the script construct: the knowledge of how events develop in real life could lead to a better comprehension of temporal and causal relationships. This study addressed the existence of a specific association between children's performance on a listening comprehension test and their performance on a picture arrangement task that was specifically developed for this project. The participants were 110 preschool children ranging in age from 3 to 6 years. The results show that children's listening text comprehension ability is mainly explained by their lexical comprehension, but at 3 years of age, their competence in correctly arranging events in a sequential order plays a significant role in explaining children's comprehension of textual information.

Narrative comprehension in Alzheimer's disease: Assessing inferences and memory operations with a think-aloud procedure.

To further understanding of text comprehension abilities in Alzheimer's disease (AD), a think-aloud protocol was used to examine the role of inferencing and the memory operations used to produce inferences. Twenty participants with AD and 20 cognitively healthy older adults (OA) read narratives, pausing to talk aloud after each sentence. A verbal protocol analysis developed by Trabasso and Magliano (1996a) was used to code participants' utterances into inferential and noninferential clause types; inferential statements were then coded to identify the memory operation used in their generation. Compared with OA controls, the AD participants showed poorer story comprehension, d = 2.0, produced fewer inferences, d = .67, and were less skilled at providing explanations of story events, d = 1.27, and in using prior text information to explain outcomes, d = .90. The AD group also appeared to rely more on the activation of world knowledge, d = .58, which contributed to less effective inferences and produced more incoherent noninferential statements, d = 1.05. Poorer text comprehension for the AD group was associated with poorer verbal memory abilities, r's > .55, and poorer use of prior text events when producing explanatory inferences, r = .42. The findings suggest that the memory difficulties of the AD group appear to be an important cognitive factor interfering with their ability to integrate story events through the use of inferences and to create a global coherence to support text comprehension.

Lexical processing skill in college-age resilient readers

Despite an extensive literature linking individual differences in phonological processing to reading ability, some adults show normal text comprehension abilities despite poor pseudoword reading (Jackson & Doellinger (2002). Journal of Educational Psychology, 94, 64–78). This study was undertaken to investigate differences between these individuals, termed resilient readers, and proficient readers in performance and degree of lateralization on a variety of single word processing tasks. Participants completed seven divided visual field tasks investigating various aspects of reading. Resilient readers performed less accurately on basic word recognition tasks, but not on the tasks involving semantic access. Resilient readers did not differ from proficient readers on reaction time or lateralization on any of the experimental tasks. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that skilled phonological decoding is not necessary for reading for meaning in a college population. It is proposed that higher-level semantic information and general world knowledge may allow some readers to compensate for deficiencies in lower-level word recognition processes.