Methods
| Coh-Metrix & Coh-GIT | timeline |
| Experiment | Method |
| Experiment 1 | Comprehension will be assessed both immediately and after a one-day delay with cued-recall (i.e., tape-recorded using five Wh-questions), followed orally presented True/False questions concerning the passages. Children will also complete two measures of word-level reading skills: the Letter-Word Identification test and Word Attack test from the Woodcock-Johnson III (Woodcock, McGrew, & Mather, 2001). These two tests form a Basic Reading Skills cluster score. The independent experimental variables will include the within-subject variables of passage coherence (i.e., high/low), text genre (i.e., narrative/expository) and test-delay (immediate, delayed). The dependent measures (i.e., words recalled, idea units recalled, question accuracy) will be analyzed separately and as an aggregate score. |
| Experiment 2 | A battery of cognitive ability and reading tests will be completed by students in grades 3, 4, and 5 to predict reading comprehension of high- and low-cohesion expository passages. Participants will read expository passages that vary linearly in terms of coherence. Reading comprehension and reading skills will be assessed in the same manner as in Experiment 1. The children will also complete tests from the Woodcock-Johnson III (Woodcock et al., 2001) to examine the relative value of vocabulary knowledge, verbal reasoning, associative memory, working memory, phonological skills, controlled (focused) attention, non-linguistic reasoning, visual-spatial ability, and rapid automatic naming ability. |
| Experiment 3 | Reading skill profiles will be analyzed of (a) children who are considered skilled comprehenders of low-cohesion text and (b) children who are considered poor comprehenders of low-cohesion text. Fourth-grade children will read two low-cohesion passages. To address a variety of reading skills measured using varying test paradigms, children will complete the Letter-Word Identification, Word Attack, Passage Comprehension, Reading Vocabulary, and Reading Fluency tests from the Woodcock-Johnson III (Woodcock et al., 2001) and the Reading Comprehension subtest from the Wechsler Individual Achievement Tests, Second Edition (Wechsler, 2001). Profile analyses will determine shape, level, and dispersion of reading skills for the two groups of children. Analyses will indicate whether the groups have parallel profiles (i.e., shape), whether overall differences exist between groups (i.e., level), and whether groups performed similarly on all reading skills (i.e., dispersion). |
| Experiment 4 | Experiment 4, 100 college students will read two science passages, including one high-cohesion and one low-cohesion version. Measures will be obtained of participants’ domain (science) knowledge, general (literature, arts, history) knowledge, reading ability (including reading strategy knowledge), and reading motivation. |
| Experiment 5 | College students will read either the high- or low-cohesion science passage and readers’ motivational factors (i.e., goals) will be manipulated with instructions to read the passage to either (a) prepare to answer essay questions about the passage, or (b) prepare for multiple-choice questions about the content. After reading the passages, the participants will answer open-ended essay questions of varying difficulty (i.e., the dependent measure is proportion correct). Half of the questions will assess comprehension of single sentences within the passage (i.e., text based), and half of the questions will assess comprehension of relationships between separate sentences (i.e., bridging inference). Within-subject experimental variables include text cohesion and question type. |
| Experiment 6 | This experiment examines cohesion effects across a variety of text genres. Here, we will use natural texts rather than experimenter-manipulated passages, with cohesion verified using an overall Coh-Metrix score. Participants will read 12 passages from three text genres (narrative, historical, and scientific), which will vary linearly in terms of overall cohesion. Thus, across text genres, there will be three passages of low, medium-low, medium-high, and high coherence. The passages will vary in readability scores from 9th to 12th grade levels such that readability scores and cohesion scores are not correlated. Passages will be presented on a computer screen in a cumulative sentence-by-sentence technique such that each sentence appears one at a time, with previous sentences remaining visible. Participants will read the passages and type their recall of the text either after each one (immediate recall) or after reading all of the passages (delayed recall). Participants’ knowledge, reading ability, and motivation will be assessed. Independent experimental variables include the within-subjects factors of text genre and passage coherence, and the between-subjects factor of recall delay. |
| Experiment 7 | College student participants will read the same passages as described in Experiment 6 (i.e., 12 passages from three genres and four cohesion levels). Measures of reader aptitude will include knowledge, reading ability, and motivation. Participants will be asked to recall the passages to ensure reading for comprehension. Each passage will be divided into four text screens in order to allow for a font size large enough to ensure eye-tracking accuracy. An ASL 501 eye tracker will measure the participant’s eye movements and record data on total fixations per word, first pass fixation times and number of regressions. Before each passage participant will be calibrated. As in Experiment 6, participants will read the passages in a random order and type their recall of the passage either after reading each one (immediate recall) or after reading all of the texts (delayed recall). Analyses are similar to Experiment 3, except that the locus of processing load will also be identified in the text. |
| Experiment 8 | Children in grades 3, 4, and 5 will read four expository and four narrative passages that vary linearly in cohesion and that have been estimated by readability formulas to be appropriate for grades 2-6. Measures of reader aptitude will include those indicated in Experiments 1-3 to be most predictive of comprehension and coherence effects. Participants will be asked to verbally recall the passages to ensure that they are reading to comprehend the material. Recall protocols will be recorded and analyzed. We will examine eye-tracking patterns to verify that Coh-GIT reliably predicts participants’ eye tracking behaviors. In contrast with other eye trackers (e.g., the Purkinje eye tracking systems), the ASL Model 501 is very light and non-intrusive. The participant can wear lightweight, head-mounted optics and have unrestricted freedom of movement, which makes this eye tracker suitable for children. |