The effect of audio-support on strategy, time, and performance on reading comprehension in secondary school students with dyslexia

Abstract

The use of adequate reading comprehension strategies is important to read efficiently. Students with dyslexia not only read slower and less accurately, they also use fewer reading comprehension strategies. To compensate for their decoding problems, they often receive audio-support (narration written text). However, audio-support linearly guides readers from beginning to end through texts, possibly hindering the use of reading comprehension strategies in expository texts and negatively impacting reading time and reading comprehension performance. We examined to what extent audio-support affects reading comprehension strategies, reading times, and reading comprehension performance in 21 secondary school students with dyslexia and 22 typically developing controls. Participants were provided with three types of assignments (summarizing, open-ended questions, statement questions) in each condition (written text with and without audio-support). SMI RED-500 eye tracker captured eye movements during reading. The standard deviation of the weighted fixation duration times on the three paragraphs was considered indicative of the disparity of readers’ attention within the text. Following a discrimination based on experts’ reading behavior and hand-coded validation, these scores visualized whether students used the intensive reading strategy (reading whole text) or selective reading strategy (focusing on part of the text). In open-ended assignments, students divided their attention more over the whole text instead of focusing on one specific part when audio was added. In addition, audio-support increased reading time in students with and without dyslexia in most tasks, while in neither of the tasks audio-support affected reading comprehension performance. Audio-support impacts reading comprehension strategy and reading time in all students.

Impact of audio on navigation strategies in children and adults with dyslexia

“…This has the important implication for the CTML that the impact of audio seems to differ between learners. The present results, combined with Knoop-van Campen et al (2022) who showed that audio support has a negative effect on students' reading comprehension strategy, indicate that information processing is active and that audio can reduce the number of reader-initiated actions: audio seem to make learning less active. For optimal learning, a learner must actively engage in the material (Caccamise et al, 2015).…”

“…This fits with the statement that self-regulated learning is a "dynamic and developing process" (Boekaerts & Corno, 2005, p. 208). In addition, a recent study on multimedia and reading strategies in secondary school students showed that audio support had a negative effect on students' reading comprehension strategy (Knoop-van Campen et al, 2022). In this study, we found that audio elicited less efficient reading behavior: students made less reader-initiated decisions but tend to follow the audio.…”

“…This allowed us to purely examine their navigation pattern and shows that even though there are differences between learners' with and without dyslexia on micro-level (e.g., reading skills, and see also Kim & Wiseheart, 2017), their navigation strategies to tackle a learning task are comparable. In line with suggestions from Knoop-van Campen et al (2022), a more time-restricted assignment may have led to differences between learners with and without dyslexia. Time pressure taps into their decoding problems and increases cognitive load, which could have reduced their capacity to make self-initiated decisions.…”

“…It raises the question where the tipping point is for audio to start affecting learning behavior. This might already be the case at secondary education as is shown in Knoop-van Campen et al (2022) where secondary school students approach reading comprehension tasks less efficiently with audio than without audio (longer time, less efficient strategy). We know that in adults with and without dyslexia, audio support impacts learning outcomes negatively (Knoop-van Campen et al, 2020).…”

“…These questionnaires furthermore inquire more about generic study techniques, whereas in the current study, we investigated learning behavior in specific multimedia lessons. A study, in which the eye-movements of secondary school students with and without dyslexia were compared during a reading comprehension task, showed no differences in the reading strategy both groups used (Knoop-van Campen et al, 2022).…”