The Interaction of Reader and Task Factors in the Assessment of Reading Comprehension

Factors Affecting the Difficulty of Reading Comprehension Items for Successful and Unsuccessful Readers

“…Moreover, because previous research (Benson & Crocker, 1979;Davey & LaSasso, 1984;Johnston, 1984;Johnston & Pearson, 1982) has suggested potentially important interactions between reader Downloaded by [University of Otago] at 21:17 03 January 2015 variables (such as skills, prior knowledge, and styles) and these reading comprehension assessment features, their differential predictability on item performance was assessed for successful and unsuccessful readers. Relevant test features were identified from the literature and used to predict test .performance for the two reader groups.…”

“…Educational decisions concerning students' placements and programs are influenced heavily by performance on such standardized measures, and the assumption is often made that all students' performance scores represent the same valid manifestation of the latent construct, comprehension. However, it has been suggested that the validity of such assessments can be affected by certain features of the test itself, such as passage variables (e.g., Beck, McKeown, Omanson, & Pople, 1984;Johnston & Pearson, 1982;Marr, 1983;Moes et al, 1984;Raphael, Myers, Tirre, Freebody, & Fritz, 1981), question type variables (e.g., Davey & LaSasso, 1984;Haertel, 1980Haertel, , 1984Johnston & Pearson, 1982), and question format features (e.g., Drum, Calfee, & Cook, 1981;Kendall, Mason, & Hunter, 1980;Traub & Fisher, 1977;Ward, 1982).…”

Field dependence‐independence and academic achievement: a re‐examination of their relationship

“…For example, it has been suggested that field-dependent subjects take a global view of available information whereas field-independent subjects follow a more analytical approach (Clark & Roof, 1988;Marendaz, 1985). The 'analytical' approach is widely considered to be better suited to academic achievement, whether as regards specific subject areas (Buriel, 1978;Canelos et al, 1980;Chandran, Treagust & Tobin, 1987;Davey & LaSasso, 1984;Leo-Rhynie, 1985) or acrossthe-board achievement (Cohen, 1969;Davis, 1991;Kagan & Zahn, 1975;Shade, 1983).…”

“…Few previous studies have specifically focused on the effects of cognitive style on academic achievement, although a considerable amount of relevant data has been collected in the course of studies which have treated the relationship between cognitive style and academic achievement as an epiphenomenon. It is for example common to report the performances of subjects of different style on isolated tasks which, even though they pertain to a particular area of knowledge, do not say much about global performance in that area (Abraham, 1983;Annis, 1979;Davey & LaSasso, 1984;Davies, 1988;Readence, Baldwin, Bean & Dishner, 1980;Strawitz, 1984~). A further problem with some of these studies is that the tasks presented involve additional restructuring demands (Annis, 1979;Davey & LaSasso, 1984) or are similar to those used in the measurement of field dependence-independence (Davies, 1988;Readence et al, 1980;Strawitz, 1984a).…”

Individual Differences Affecting the Acquisition of Reading Skill: A Cognitive Style Perspective

“…Existing research is particularly meager concerning field dependenceindependence and comprehension for young children, although an increasing number of studies have explored such interactions for older readers (Annis, 1979;Calais, 1985;Davey & Kapinus, 1985;Davey & LaSasso, 1984;Spiro & Tirre, 1980;Udell, 1980). Available findings concerning comprehension processes do suggest that certain instructional practices may influence observed differences between field independent and field dependent children.…”