No correlation between inferencing causal relations and text comprehension?

In this study, the causal network model of Trabasso and Van den Broek was u sed to create short narrative texts and to analyse inferencing processes in duced from verbal protocols collected during reading and thinking aloud tas ks. Inferential skills were taught of inferencing by offering 10- and Ii-ye ar-old students a training programme in which both local and global coheren ce were topics of explanation and practice. The programme enhanced inferent ial skills but did not increase performance on a Dutch standardised text co mprehension test. It was argued that the test format (answering multiple ch oice questions about an available text) may have been responsible for this lack of transfer. Therefore, a second experiment was conducted in which cor relations between performance on reading and thinking aloud tests and compr ehension tests were analysed with both different texts and identical texts. Again, Ilo correlations showed up between reading and thinking aloud perfo rmance and comprehension scores on the closed comprehension test with the t ext at hand. Several tentative explanations were offered. The reading and t hinking aloud test may have drawn substantially on verbal fluency. Apart fr om that, the testing format of the text comprehension test was seriously qu estioned. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.