How test-taking strategies affect students’ reading comprehension
When students read entire passages for comprehension before reading the questions, they are likely to find answers to comprehension questions in the text more precisely and more efficiently, according to new research from the University of Georgia.
The study comes from a research team including Scott Ardoin, associate dean for research and graduate education in the Mary Frances Early College of Education and professor in the Department of Educational Psychology. The team used eye-tracking technology to observe and measure students’ question reading and responding behavior.
Third, fifth and eighth grade students read both narrative and expository passages, and the research team coded students’ test-taking strategies—reading the entire passage first (PFC), reading only part of the passage before referencing the questions (PFI), or reading the questions before reading the passage (QFC)—to determine the effort and time students used to correctly answer the questions.
Prior studies indicated that students’ accuracy in finding answers to comprehension questions is higher when they read the entire passage first, compared to when they first read the questions and then read the stories to find answers to the questions.
“In our research examining reading interventions, we observed that some students were not reading the passages in their entirety but reading only one or two sentences and then attempting to answer comprehension questions. They were engaging in what we call non-reading or mindless reading.” Ardoin said.
“That made us wonder—what are we truly measuring when students are taking standardized tests of reading comprehension? Are we measuring kids’ searching skills, or are we measuring their reading comprehension?”
In their most recent research, the authors examined how test characteristics such as text type and length impacted students’ test-taking strategies. They reported that students were less likely to employ the best strategies when text was expository and longer in length.
Most students read passages in their entirety before reading and trying to answer the questions. That strategy tended to result in students having greater accuracy, needing to spend less time rereading the passages, and overall taking less time to complete the tests. Although there is not one best test-taking strategy, the findings indicate that the PFC strategy is the most efficient tactic.
“Students are often encouraged to use test-taking strategies for which there is no evidence of their benefits. We need to focus on encouraging students to read passages to understand what the authors are trying to communicate to the reader. We need to encourage reading for comprehension instead of reading to answer questions.” Ardoin said. “That will result in students developing better comprehension skills, being able to answer questions with greater accuracy and taking less time to complete tests.”