Performance in Reading Comprehension — product or process?

Abstract

This article initially reviews the related research literature accounting for the extent to which perceptions about what constitutes reading influence approaches to the evaluation of students' performance in reading comprehension. The comprehension testing view and the metacomprehension view, underscoring product and process respectively, are mentioned. The recent interest in the research field, relative to the concept of metacognition, has tended to emphasize the importance of process over product. Several researchers have investigated how process information can be used to better understand product measures about performance in reading comprehension. Their findings have revealed the challenging nature of the task in obtaining reliable process measures of reading comprehension. But the findings of instructional research in metacognition have not received sufficiently favourable countenance in classroom practice. One encouraging hypothesis, however, is that the instructional advantages to be gained from an increasing knowledge of the reader and the reading process will facilitate better understanding of performance in reading comprehension.

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