Science Comprehension: Effects of Text Coherence and Reader Aptitudes

There is a significant need to improve reading comprehension as typical textbooks, particularly science textbooks, are often too difficult for the average student to comprehend. The overall purpose of this study was to examine which reader aptitudes, specifically prior domain knowledge, reading ability, metacognitive reading strategy knowledge, and motivation, were most predictive of science text comprehension, and whether these relationships varied as a function of text coherence. Further, the purpose entailed which factors (reading ability, metacognitive reading strategy knowledge, and motivation) may assist low knowledge readers to compensate for knowledge deficits, particularly when reading low-coherence texts. There were 241 undergraduate students from Old Dominion University that participated in this study. There were significant main effects of prior domain knowledge, reading skill, knowledge of metacognitive reading strategies, and motivation. High-knowledge students scored significantly higher on the comprehension questions compared to low-knowledge students. More skilled readers scored significantly higher on the comprehension questions compared to less skilled readers. Students with greater knowledge of metacognitive reading strategies scored significantly higher on the comprehension questions compared to students with less knowledge of metacognitive reading strategies. Further, students with greater motivation scored significantly higher on the comprehension questions, particularly for the chemistry text, compared to less motivated students. There was also a main effect of question type, indicating that students performed significantly higher on the text-based comprehension questions compared to the bridging inference comprehension questions. These results indicated that comprehension is clearly hindered by students lacking prior knowledge of the subject area, reading ability, and knowledge of reading strategies. The results further indicated that high coherence texts are more beneficial to low knowledge students. The results involve implications for teaching reading strategies.