Traditionally, community colleges offer an education for everyone with a high school diploma or a General Education Development (GED) diploma; however, many students are required to take developmental reading courses. This study used a quasi-experimental comparative study model in a quantitative design to examine the effects of the strategic…

A large body of work has demonstrated that reader resources influence inference processes and comprehension, but few models of comprehension have accounted for such resources. The Direct and Mediational Inference model of comprehension (DIME) assumes that general inference processes mediate the effects of reader resources on general comprehension…

A large body of work has demonstrated that reader resources influence inference processes and comprehension, but few models of comprehension have accounted for such resources. The Direct and Mediational Inference model of comprehension (DIME) assumes that general inference processes mediate the effects of reader resources on general comprehension…

According to Question-Under-Discussion (QUD) models of discourse interpretation, clauses cohere with the preceding context by virtue of providing answers to (usually implicit) questions that are situated within a speaker's goal-driven strategy of inquiry. In this article we present four experiments that examine the predictions of a QUD model of…

During conversation, partners develop representations of jointly known information--the common ground--and use this knowledge to guide subsequent linguistic exchanges. Extensive research on 2-party conversation has offered key insights into this process, in particular, its partner-specificity: Common ground that is shared with 1 partner is not…

We used eye tracking to investigate the downstream processing consequences of encountering noun/verb (NV) homographs (i.e., park) in semantically neutral but syntactically constraining contexts. Target words were followed by a prepositional phrase containing a noun that was plausible for only 1 meaning of the homograph. Replicating previous work,…

Three self-paced reading experiments examined the effect of context on interpreting subsequent sentences and in the difficulty of revising initial misinterpretations of subsequent temporarily ambiguous sentences. Target sentences containing noun phrase/sentence (NP/S) coordination ambiguities were preceded by contexts that either did or did not…

This study assessed whether and how self-explanation reading training, provided by iSTART (Interactive Strategy Training for Active Reading and Thinking), improves the effectiveness of comprehension processes. iSTART teaches students how to self-explain and which strategies will most effectively aid comprehension from moment-to-moment. We used…

Evaluating the structural quality of arguments is a skill that is important to students' ability to comprehend the arguments of others and produce their own. The authors examined college and high school students' ability to evaluate the quality of 2-clause (claim-reason) arguments and tested a tutorial to improve this ability. These experiments…

This study examines a collaborative project between a literacy professor and a classroom teacher. The professor used a Newbery Award winning novel to develop a unit for a fifth-grade classroom using curricular materials and methods that showcased research-based literacy practices. The fifth-grade teacher, in turn, used her knowledge of students'…

This study tests the claim that word learning and retention in a second language are contingent upon a task's involvement load (i.e. the amount of need, search, and evaluation it imposes), as proposed by Laufer and Hulstijn (2001). Seventy-nine beginning learners of Spanish completed one of three vocabulary learning tasks that varied in the amount…

With the goal of improving the reliability and validity of tests of English as a foreign language, in particular with respect to the question of whether to allow notetaking on EFL/ESL computer-based listening comprehension tests, the present study examined the effects on ESL listening comprehension of notetaking (allowed or disallowed) in relation…

For the thirty-third year, the Research and Theory Division of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) is sponsoring the publication of these Proceedings. This is Volume #2 of the 33rd "Annual Proceedings of Selected Papers on the Practice of Educational Communications and Technology." This volume includes…