Lexical quality measures in the assessment of reading proficiency in Brazilian university students

Abstract

Purpose: to assess the reading ability of university students using tasks to measure Lexical Quality (LQ) and evaluate the influence of socioeconomic status (SES) on both the reading performance and the components of Lexical Quality (LQ). Methods: 44 students from two federal universities took online linguistic tests, 19 from the Federal University of the Great ABC Region (UFABC) and 25 from the Federal University of Ceará (UFC), Brazil. Two-ranked Mann-Whitney (Wilcoxon rank-sum test) and Pearson’s Correlation tests at p<0,05 were applied to analyze the data. Results: high and medium correlations were obtained among the different components of LQ, such as vocabulary and spelling recognition. In addition, significant differences were found between the performances of the two universities' students and their distinct socioeconomic levels. Conclusion: shorter reading times were correlated to higher accuracy in the Test of Word Reading Efficiency for Adults. The number of correct answers in the homonym test was correlated to the higher accuracy of the Test of Word Reading Efficiency for Adults, and both were correlated to the reaction time measures of these tests. The influence of socioeconomic status on reading performance and Lexical Quality components tasks was also found.