Who Learns from Reading Texts in General Chemistry?

Understanding how student characteristics affect learning in General Chemistry can influence the pedagogical strategies employed by instructors. Previous studies have investigated the effects of characteristics including prior knowledge, math ability, and motivations on course performance. Student characteristics can also influence study strategies employed by students. Few studies, however, have focused on the role of language and reading comprehension skill in learning in chemistry. This work explores the effects of prior knowledge and reading comprehension skill on learning from reading texts about two chemistry concepts. Linear regression analyses were utilized to establish relationships between predictors and test scores after reading to determine whether reading comprehension skill influenced learning gains after reading texts. A meta-analysis of four large-scale studies showed that prior knowledge and reading comprehension correlated with post-test scores and that an effect called expertise reversal may help low prior knowledge students close the post-test score gap if they read texts with certain readability characteristics. However, our findings also suggest that texts with similar readability characteristics can hinder the learning of those with higher prior knowledge.