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Type of Document Thesis Author Ganson, Katie M. Author's Email Address kmg02c@fsu.edu URN etd-04092009-153434 Title The Effects of Reading Purpose on Levels of Mental Representation and General Comprehension of Texts in Middle School Students Degree Master of Science Department Educational Psychology and Learning Systems, Department of Advisory Committee
Advisor Name Title Alysia Roehrig Committee Chair Beth Phillips Committee Member Jeannine Turner Committee Member Keywords
- Middle School
- Background Knowledge
- Reading Comprehension
- Reading Purpose
- Inference Generation
Date of Defense 2009-03-04 Availability unrestricted Abstract The purpose of this study was to test the effects of various perceived reading purposes on seventh and eighth grade social-studies students' levels of Mental Representation of Text and General Comprehension of texts. One hundred and four participants were randomly assigned to one of three experimental groups: inference generating reading purpose, non-inference generating reading purpose, or no purpose given. After being assigned one of the reading purposes, students read one of two randomly assigned social-studies expository text segments at the eighth grade reading level. After reading the assigned text, students were administered two text-specific comprehension assessments. A Pearson's Chi-square analysis showed that no differences existed in the proportion of students reaching each level of Mental Representation of Text as influenced by purpose alone. In addition, no differences were found in the students' General Comprehension score based on reading purpose alone. A post-hoc Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) showed that stronger background knowledge for one of the two texts may have been a contributing factor in the way the student scored the assessments.Files
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