Integration of comprehension and metacomprehension using narrative texts

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Title Integration of comprehension and metacomprehension using narrative texts
Publication Type dissertation
School or College College of Education
Department Educational Psychology
Author Keener, Matt C.
Date 2011-08
Description The purpose of the present research was to investigate text; comprehension of narrative text;s at varying levels of comprehension and examine how metacomprehension varies as a function of the level of comprehension when making retrospective (posttest) confidence judgments of performance. Using Kintsch's construction-integration theory of text; comprehension, three types of question were developed to probe text;base and situation model levels of text; representation at three levels of difficulty: (a) text;base, literal (easiest), (b) situation model, temporal ordering (low difficulty inferences), and (c) situation model, propositional logic (high difficulty inferences). Differences in percent correct, response time in milliseconds per character, and max amplitude of pupil size confirmed the predicted difficulty of the three question types, except that there was no significant difference in pupil size between the literal and temporal ordering questions. The three types of questions were then used to examine the effect of question difficulty on metacomprehension judgments of confidence, absolute accuracy (calibration accuracy and bias), and relative accuracy (Goodman-Kruskal gamma coefficient or G). Results showed that readers were sensitive to different levels of comprehension and showed different levels of metacomprehension confidence and accuracy depending on the type of question. As predicted, absolute accuracy showed the effects of anchoringand-adjustment when making these judgments across question type. That is, subjects appeared to be anchoring on a moderate estimate of success that corresponded most closely in this study to performance on literal questions and adjusted their confidence for temporal ordering and propositional logic questions. The results related to bias provided support for the hard-easy effect, with propositional logic questions (i.e., hard questions) showing overconfidence and literal questions (i.e., easy questions) showing no significant bias, although bias scores did not discriminate between temporal ordering and propositional logic questions. As predicted, relative accuracy (G) appeared to be stable across question types with no significant differences by question type. As with previous studies, the differences in the results concerning absolute versus relative accuracy suggest that the two types of accuracy are measuring different components of metacomprehension.
Type Text
Publisher University of Utah
Subject Comprehension; Metacognition; Metacomprehension; Monitoring; Narrative; Reading
Dissertation Institution University of Utah
Dissertation Name Doctor of Philosophy
Language eng
Rights Management Copyright © Matt C. Keener 2011
Format application/pdf
Format Medium application/pdf
Format Extent 275,916 bytes
Identifier us-etd3,45924
Source original in Marriott Library Special Collections ; LB7.5 2011 .K44
ARK ark:/87278/s6fr0bbr
Setname ir_etd
ID 194695
Reference URL https://collections.lib.utah.edu/ark:/87278/s6fr0bbr
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