The Meta Analysis of the Effects of Reading-Comprehension Intervention Programs for Persons with Hearing Impairments in Korea

Objectives The purposes of this study were to have the comprehensive analysis of the effectiveness of reading-comprehension intervention programs for persons with hearing impairments in Korea. Thus, it examined the overall effect size of these programs as well as the effect size of each of independent variables and moderator variables. Methods In the study, data were collected from the papers and theses (master’s and doctoral) published in Korean journals between 1995 and March 2003 in 6 electronic databases, and in accordance with PRISMA, made the final selection of these papers and theses for the study. 13 papers were chosen for the study and 38 cases of effect size were extracted. The meta-analysis was made using R and a random-effects model was chosen in consideration of heterogeneity of the these included studies. Results The findings of the analysis are as follows. First, the overall effect size of the reading-comprehension intervention programs for persons with hearing impairments in Korea was 1.36(95% CI:1.06-1.67), considering to be large. As for the effect sizes for six independent variables, including comprehension monitoring-based interventions, vocabulary-based interventions, visual medial using interventions, teaching-method model, sign language utilization interventions, and teacher-led questioning interventions, they were found to be varied, ranged from large effect sizes to small effect sizes. Second, for moderator variables, they were classified by each of the following categories: the school level and age; the operation of the intervention program (no. of sessions per week, total no. of sessions, total period, and duration for a session); the type of measurement for evaluation tools; and the publication type. From the analysis, it was shown that there were significantly different in all moderator variables, excluding the duration for each session (minutes) and the publishment type. In the operation of the intervention program, the intervention program with 2-to-3 sessions per week and with the total duration of 2 to 10 weeks were found to have the largest effect size. Conclusions It is believed that it is necessary to provide interventions appropriate to the reading comprehension level of persons with hearing impairments and to apply not only single interventions but also complex interventions.