scholarly journals Validation of the International Reading Speed Texts in a Canadian Sample

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elliott Morrice ◽  
Julian Hughes ◽  
Zoey stark ◽  
Aaron Paul Johnson ◽  
Walter Wittich

Purpose: The purpose of these studies are (1) to validate the IReST in an English-speaking Canadian sample; and (2) examine how reading comprehension questions and reduced visual acuity effect reading speed on the IReST.Materials & Methods: Study 1: Canadian English speakers (n=25) read all 10 IReST following the procedures used in the original IReST validation. Study 2: Canadian English speakers (n=50) read all 10 IReST, half with normal/corrected-to-normal vision and half with reduced visual acuity, and were asked reading comprehension questions.Results: No significant differences were found between Canadian sample and the published IReST values (in all cases p>.05, Mdiff=[-5.30,11.43], Cohen’s d=[-.15, .27], Bayes Factors=[0.41,0.09]). Assessing reading comprehension with multiple choice questions on the IReST significantly reduced reading speeds in the normal vision condition (Mdiff=25.3, 95% CI=[-16.7,-34.1]) and in the simulated impairment condition (Mdiff=59.3, 95% CI [-47.7,-71]).Conclusions: The IReST is a valid measure that can be used to assess reading speed in a Canadian English speaking sample. If researchers/clinicians wish to assess both reading speed and comprehension, using multiple choice reading comprehension questions, then the values provided by the IReST will likely overestimate an individual’s true reading speed in individuals with normal/corrected-to-normal vision and reduced visual acuity.

Author(s):  
Zhipeng Chen ◽  
Yiming Cui ◽  
Wentao Ma ◽  
Shijin Wang ◽  
Guoping Hu

Machine Reading Comprehension (MRC) with multiplechoice questions requires the machine to read given passage and select the correct answer among several candidates. In this paper, we propose a novel approach called Convolutional Spatial Attention (CSA) model which can better handle the MRC with multiple-choice questions. The proposed model could fully extract the mutual information among the passage, question, and the candidates, to form the enriched representations. Furthermore, to merge various attention results, we propose to use convolutional operation to dynamically summarize the attention values within the different size of regions. Experimental results show that the proposed model could give substantial improvements over various state-of- the-art systems on both RACE and SemEval-2018 Task11 datasets.


Author(s):  
Yustira Kharlina Tangiduk ◽  
Nurmin Samola ◽  
Rinny Rorimpandey

This study aims to determine whether the E-learning method can be effective in optimizing students' reading comprehension of descriptive text with WhatsApp Application. This research was conducted in class X MIA 1 SMA Negeri 1 Buko in the academic year of 2020/2021. This study used one group-pretest-postest design of research with the data analysis were the frequency distribution of scores, mean and standard deviation. The questions from the pretest and posttest used the type of multiple choice questions with questions about the descriptive text. From this result, it was found that the mean of posttest Y = 7.8 with standard deviation Sy = 0.79 was higher than mean score at pretest X = 5.33 with standard deviation Sx = 0.89. It means that students' reading comprehension in descriptive text was higher after treatment at posttest than pretest. So the researcher concluded that the application of the E-learning method through WhatsApp application was effective in optimizing students' reading comprehension of descriptive text.


1972 ◽  
Vol 5 (4) ◽  
pp. 273-281 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronald V. Evans

Transformational-generative grammar theory has prompted several studies on the reading comprehension of variously transformed sentences. The results have shown that verbal noun phrases, noun and relative clauses, subordinate clauses, as well as the number of modifiers embedded on any noun headword, all combine to complicate reading comprehension. This study compared two identical groups of 12th grade students, reading two versions of five prose selections. One version had simplified all of the previously mentioned structures, maintaining a twelve-word average sentence length. The other version was taken as used in The Davis Reading Test. Both groups were tested by multiple-choice questions from the reading test and by cloze-tests. The results showed a significant achievement on the multiple choice test and on three of five cloze tests for the simplified-version readers.


2019 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 52
Author(s):  
Ana Cristina Lahuerta Martínez

The aim of the present study is to examine the effect of perceived interest and prior knowledge on EFL reading comprehension. Participants were 227 undergraduates with advanced competence in English. With respect to the method, participants had to read a 450-word text entitled Wales. After that, they had to complete a Perceived Interest Questionnaire (PIQ), which consisted of 9 items and two assessment tasks: a written recall and a multiple choice task. The results of our study show the significant effect of perceived interest and prior knowledge on L2 reading comprehension. Thus, comprehension assessed via written recall and multiple choice questions had higher scores when readers read texts related to their interests. Besides, prior knowledge had a positive effect on the reader’s comprehension irrespective of the assessment method used. This study concludes that different assessment tasks may be crucial factors that affect the relationship between factors like interest and prior knowledge, and L2 reading comprehension.


1978 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 417-436 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eileen B. Entin ◽  
George R. Klare

Seven passages of a published reading comprehension test were administered to college students to compare the regular multiple chioce test scores with scores on two forms of a cloze test, standard blank and dash (dashed-line) blank, and with readability formula values. The mean on the dash form was significantly higher than on the standard form and subjects' scores on both were significantly related to their scores on the multiple choice test. Regression equations were derived to predict multiple choice scores from cloze scores. At the passage level, mean scores on (both) cloze forms correlated with readability values, but multiple choice means were correlated with neither. In a supplementary study college students answered the multiple choice questions without reading the passages, in order to determine prior knowledge on each passage. When the multiple choice scores were corrected for this, they correlated positively with scores on both forms of the cloze test and with readability values.


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