The purpose of the current study was to examine whether being interested in a particular text topic affects reading comprehension processes and products of skilled and less-skilled comprehenders...Show moreThe purpose of the current study was to examine whether being interested in a particular text topic affects reading comprehension processes and products of skilled and less-skilled comprehenders differently. Fifty-two upper elementary school children read six expository texts, three of which the topic of the text was rated as interesting and three of which the topic was rated as uninteresting. Eye-tracking was used to monitor the processes while reading. Reading comprehension products were assessed by two types of questions (i.e., literal and inferential), each designed to reflect a different level of comprehension. Students were also asked about how much knowledge they already had about each of the topics. The results indicated that being interested in a topic does not change reading comprehension processes of both skilled and less-skilled comprehenders, suggesting that they do not benefit from interesting topics compared to noninteresting topics. In addition, topic interest affected the amount of literal questions answered correctly. However, no such results were shown for inferential questions. With skilled comprehenders scoring better on both types of questions, and no interest topic x reading comprehension skill interaction being observed, this indicates that less-skilled comprehenders also do not benefit enough from an interesting topic regarding reading comprehension products. The results are discussed in the light of standards of coherence, cognitive abilities, and background knowledge.Show less
The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of the seductive allure of neuroscience explanations (SANE effect), the finding that people overvalue psychological arguments when framed...Show moreThe aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of the seductive allure of neuroscience explanations (SANE effect), the finding that people overvalue psychological arguments when framed in terms of neuroscience findings, among teachers in the Netherlands. This study is based on the work of Im, Varma & Varma (2017) and also examined the possible role of three moderating variables, i.e. educational background, neuroscientific knowledge and attitude towards educational neuroscience. Participants (N = 310) read eight articles about educational topics in one of the four conditions corresponding to four levels of neuroscientific framing: psychological finding alone, with an extraneous neuroscience finding (verbal), with an extraneous neuroscience finding (verbal) and graph, and with an extraneous neuroscientific finding (verbal) and brain image. Participants were randomly assigned to one level of neuroscientific framing and rated the credibility of each article’s argument on a 7-point Likert scale. The results show that there was a general SANE effect when educational articles were accompanied by both extraneous verbal neuroscience findings and brain images. Extraneous verbal neuroscientific framings, either alone or accompanied by graphs, did not influence the credibility of the application of psychological findings to educational topics. The results did not support the expectations that teachers’ educational background or neuroscientific knowledge play a role in the SANE effect. However, the results suggest that the teacher’s attitude towards educational neuroscience does influence the SANE effect: teachers who were very positive towards the use of neuroscience in education were sensitive for the SANE effect and teachers who were moderate to not positive about this were not. On the basis of the results of this research and previous SANE studies, future studies to further investigate the mechanism of the SANE effect among teachers, the role of the effect and neuromyths in education, and how to build a bridge between neuroscience and education are suggested.Show less
Reading comprehension is a complex but important skill to function well in society. Reading motivation is of great importance in the development of reading comprehension skills. International tests...Show moreReading comprehension is a complex but important skill to function well in society. Reading motivation is of great importance in the development of reading comprehension skills. International tests shows that the reading skills and reading motivation of secondary school students has deteriorated in recent years. The aim of the current research is to examine the reading motivation of students in higher professional education and university. First, the influence of the Standard of Coherence on the reading comprehension level of students was investigated. The Standard of Coherence is a collective term for intrinsic reading motivation, extrinsic reading motivation, the desire to read difficult texts and the desire to understand texts. Secondly, it was investigated to what extent the Standard of Coherence differs between students in higher professional education and university. Participants were 47 Dutch students, of which 25 students from higher professional education and 22 students from university. All students completed a questionnaire as a measure of the reader's Standard of Coherence. In addition, the reading comprehension level of the students was determined by means of the inference test and CBM-Maze test. The results show that the individual elements of the Standard of Coherence as well as the Standard of Coherence itself are not significant predictors of the reading comprehension level. In addition, the results don’t show that the Standard of Coherence differs between students in higher professional education and university. Follow-up research should clarify the extent to which reading motivation decreases with the transition from secondary school to further education and the role of gender in the relationship between the Standard of Coherence and the reading comprehension level. Based on the current results, teachers are advised to continue to offer scientific literature in higher professional education and university in a comparable way as they are used toShow less
While reading a text, the reader makes a mental representation of this text to understand it. Reading comprehension is one of the most important tasks in primary school. It is important for success...Show moreWhile reading a text, the reader makes a mental representation of this text to understand it. Reading comprehension is one of the most important tasks in primary school. It is important for success in all subjects in school, but it is also important in daily life. The aim of this study is to investigate if readers a text understand better if they are interested in the subject of the text than when they are less interested. In addition, it is investigated whether the difference is different for low-motivated readers than for highly-motivated readers. The following research question has been formulated: ‘Do readers understand a text better when they are very interested in the subject of a text than when they are uninterested in the subject of the text? And is the difference non-identical for highly intrinsically motivated readers and low intrinsically motivated readers?’ To answer the research question, the reader has completed a reading task and a questionnaire about reading motivation. The reader has chosen three interesting topics and three uninteresting topics to read. After reading the text, the reader was asked to answer three literal questions and three inference questions about the text. In this way, it could be investigated whether interest in a specific text plays a role in text comprehension. The reader also completed a questionnaire about reading motivation to investigate whether the difference is different for highly motivated readers than for low-motivated readers. In this research, attention is only paid to intrinsic motivation. The research has shown that interest has no influence on text comprehension and there is no difference for highly motivated readers and low-motivated readers. Despite these results, it is still recommended to look for texts that arouse the interest of children. According to the literature, interest and motivation are effective factors for text comprehension.Show less
Verschillende opmaakfactoren van een tekst kunnen het leesproces en het leesbegrip van de lezer beïnvloeden. Het aanpassen van de opmaak van een tekst kan mogelijk leiden tot een hogere...Show moreVerschillende opmaakfactoren van een tekst kunnen het leesproces en het leesbegrip van de lezer beïnvloeden. Het aanpassen van de opmaak van een tekst kan mogelijk leiden tot een hogere leessnelheid en een hoger tekstbegrip. Beeline Reader is een digitale web extensie, waarbij gebruik gemaakt wordt van kleurovergangen in de tekst, waardoor het leesproces mogelijk verbeterd wordt, om zo het tekstbegrip te verhogen. In het huidige onderzoek is onderzocht in hoeverre traditionele opmaakfactoren van een tekst (regelafstand en regellengte) en het gebruik van Beeline Reader invloed hebben op het leesproces van ervaren lezers (N =21). Dit is onderzocht door het uitvoeren van een leestaak, bestaande uit acht teksten, vier teksten in combinatie met Beeline Reader en vier teksten in Zwart-Wit. Door middel van eyetracking is het leesproces van de lezers onderzocht. Uit het onderzoek komt naar voren dat Beeline Reader geen invloed heeft op het leesproces (totale leessnelheid, duur van de eerste lezing, duur van de tweede lezing) en het tekstbegrip. Teksten met een dubbele regelafstand zorgen voor een hogere leessnelheid ten opzichte van een enkele regelafstand, zolang deze maar gecombineerd is met een lange regellengte. Mogelijk komt dit door ‘crowding’ effecten. Tevens wordt er sneller gelezen bij teksten met een korte regellengte, zolang deze gecombineerd worden met een enkele regelafstand. Geconcludeerd kan worden dat traditionele opmaakfactoren van de tekst invloed hebben op het leesproces van ervaren lezers, maar dat dit afhankelijk is van hoe de regelafstand en regellengte zijn gecombineerd.Show less
The present study investigated what the influence of media is on the comprehension skill of students in upper primary school, where a distinction is made in their reading proficiency skill, age and...Show moreThe present study investigated what the influence of media is on the comprehension skill of students in upper primary school, where a distinction is made in their reading proficiency skill, age and intrinsic motivation. Reading comprehension is a very complex skill, which consist of two components: basic language skills and comprehension skills. The inference skill is one of the comprehension skills, which could possible also be trained in other modes than reading. Previous studies haven’t shown the difference between individuals yet. In the current study 31 participants from grade 4, 5 and 6 completed three comprehending tasks: reading, listening and watching a narrative story. In the analyses are the independent, between variables: reading proficiency skill, age and intrinsic motivation and the dependent, within variables: reading, listening and watching. The findings from the current study highlights there are no differences between media modes and readers based on decoding skills, media and ages, and media and intrinsic motivation. Indeed the findings show that there are differences between media and readers with a weak performance in comprehension. Weak comprehenders show lower performance scores for the reading task than strong comprehenders, however they are no differences found in the listening and watching task. To conclude weak comprehenders possess comprehension skills by the use of other media, but experience difficulties with reading processes.Show less
