Students’ perception of reading comprehension questions

Foong, P. Y., Png, J. L. H., Raslinda, A. R., & Silver, R. E. (2009). Questioning-The-Author: Primary school students' perceptions. Proceedings of theEducational Research Association of Singapore, 2009: Unpacking Teaching and Learning through Educational Research. Singapore: Educational Research Association of Singapore.

Background

Although Singaporean children have performed well in the recent international comparison of reading skills, there exists a disparity in reading proficiency between the weaker and stronger readers. According to the authors, reading comprehension should not be limited to the development of literal and inferencing processes. Students should instead be challenged to consider the purpose, audience, and authorship of the reading texts.

Aims

The authors aimed to investigate students’ perception of reading comprehension questions such as traditional reading comprehension (TRC) question types (i.e., literal, inferential, and applicative) and ‘Questioning-the-Author’ (QtA) question types (e.g., ‘What do you think the author wants you to understand from this section?’). They also considered whether students’ perception of difficulty and interest matched the accuracy of their answers to the different question types.

Sample

The sample included 134 Primary 4 students from four intact classes in a Singapore neighbourhood school. Of the four classes, two were assigned to the experimental group while the remaining two formed the control group.

Method

Data collection instruments included (a) reading comprehension tests which included both TRC and QtA question types; and (b) an opinion sheet designed to gather students’ perceived difficulty with and interest in the passage and questions. During the intervention, the experimental group was taught reading comprehension lessons using the QtA strategy while the control group received regular reading comprehension lessons.

Findings

Pre-test results revealed that students from the experimental group perceived QtA questions to be more difficult to answer but more interesting than the TRC types. However, these students regarded QtA questions to be less interesting after the intervention; a finding which was speculated to be a result of training and increased familiarity. The authors also found no match between students’ perceptions of difficulty and interest with regard to the question types and their performance.

Students from the experimental group did better at answering QtA questions as compared to the TRC questions. This, however, could be due to the fact that TRC questions designed for the post-test were more difficult than those in the pre-test.

Implications

The higher accuracy rate on the QtA questions suggests that such questions, despite requiring considerable thinking and understanding, are actually ‘easier’ to answer correctly given their more open-ended nature. Hence, they can be a powerful resource for reading comprehension since they require more thinking from students.

Original article retrieved through Google Scholar.