THE RELATIONS AMONG INTEREST, SELF-ASSESSED COMPREHENSION, AND COMPREHENSION PERFORMANCE IN YOUNG-ADULTS

This experiment investigated the relations among students' interest in texts (i.e., ''specific passage interest''), domains of texts (i.e., ''general domain interest''), self-assessments of comprehension, and c omprehension performance. College students (23 females and 8 males; M age 18.6) read expository texts, assessed their confidence in answerin g inference questions, rated the interestingness of the texts, and com pleted true/false comprehension questions. Prior to reading the texts, students provided an interest rating to assess their interest on the domains of the texts and a confidence rating in answering inferences g enerated from passages on the domains. Results indicated that interest is a contributing factor to students' self-assessments of comprehensi on; interest ratings and self-assessments given both before and after reading were highly correlated. However, only interest ratings and sel f-assessments provided following reading predicted comprehension perfo rmance. Ratings collected prior to reading were found to have a signif icant effect on self-assessments obtained after reading, indicating th at students' self-assessments may be based partly on domain familiarit y and prior knowledge. Finally, interest had a stronger effect on stud ents' self-assessments than on their performance, indicating that stud ents may be overly confident of their comprehension of interesting tex ts.