THE ROLE OF QUESTION TYPE AND READING-ABILITY IN READING-COMPREHENSION

Performance on a standardized reading comprehension test reflects the number of correct answers readers select from a list of alternate choi ces, but fails to provide information about how readers cope with the various cognitive demands of the task. The aim of this study was to de termine whether three groups of readers: normally achieving (NA), poor comprehenders (CD), with no decoding disability, and reading disabled (RD), poor comprehenders with poor decoding skills, differed in their ability to cope with reading comprehension task demands. Three task v ariables reflected in the question-answer relations that appear on sta ndardized reading comprehension tests were identified. Passage Indepen dent (PI) question can be answered with reasonable accuracy based on t he reader's prior knowledge of the passage content. Inference (INFER) questions required the reader to generate an inference at the local or global test level. Locating (LOCAT) questions require the reader to m atch the correct answer choice to a detail explicitly stated in the te xt either verbatim or in paraphrase form. The relations among reader c haracteristics, cognitive task factors and reading comprehension test scores were analyzed using a structural relations equation with LISREL . It was found that the three reading groups differed with respect to the underlying relationship between their performance on specific ques tion-answer types and their standardized reading comprehension score. For the NA group, a high score on PI was likely to be accompanied by a low score on INFER, whereas in the CD and RD groups, PI and INFER are positively related. The finding of a negative relationship between ba ckground knowledge and inference task factors for normally achieving r eaders suggests that even normal readers may have comprehension diffic ulties that go undetected on the basis of a standardized scores. This study indicates that current comprehension assessments may not be adeq uate for assessing specific reading difficulties and that more precise diagnostic tools are needed.