Sārānā Ghavāmi Lāhij; Maryam Dānāye Tous; Abdorrezā Tahriri; Ali Rabi'
Volume 10, Issue 19 , January 2019, , Pages 153-175
Abstract
Extended Abstract Introduction Reading is a complex skill and its complexity is revealed by observing people who have trouble with it. During the reading process, the spoken language symbols displayed in the form of written language is decoded. The ultimate goal of reading is to comprehend the author's ...
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Extended Abstract Introduction Reading is a complex skill and its complexity is revealed by observing people who have trouble with it. During the reading process, the spoken language symbols displayed in the form of written language is decoded. The ultimate goal of reading is to comprehend the author's message. Before, during and after reading, the reader may use a series of cognitive and metacognitive strategies to fully comprehend the text. Skilled and poor readers are very different in terms of applying the strategies of reading comprehension. This difference is more prominent in the use of metacognitive strategies. Among the metacognitive strategies of reading comprehension, the comprehension monitoring strategy is one of the most important ones that enables the reader to determine the correctness or incorrectness of his comprehension. When the skilled reader is aware of his lack of comprehension, he uses corrective strategies to solve the problem. These corrective strategies include re-reading, the use of related texts and resources, rational inferences according to the text, or the use of prior knowledge. Despite the importance of metacognitive strategy in reading comprehension, few studies have been done in Iran on this issue. Unfortunately, none of them proposed the comprehension monitoring methods and no tool has been developed for assessing this strategy in Iranian literate adults. To fill this gap in the relevant literature, a research with three questions has been designed. The questions included: what are the characteristics of comprehension monitoring tasks? What comprehension monitoring assessment tool can be constructed or nativized by applying the obtained results of the first question? Does the nativized tool have validity and reliability? Theoretical Framework Metacognition is the conscious and declarative awareness of the cognitive aspects of thinking. Metacognition in reading is the one's ability to understand, adjust and regulate oneself during the reading process. The two dimensions of metacognition in reading generally include metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive control. Metacognitive knowledge is defined as one's knowledge of cognitive processing, but it cannot guarantee metacognitive control during reading. For example, the reader may know that if he loses his concentration, he has to go back and read the text again, but during reading, he will constantly lose his concentration and fails in the comprehension process. Otero (1998) divides the comprehension monitoring strategy into three phases: evaluating, planning, and regulation. In the evaluation phase, the reader simultaneously evaluates his own understanding of what he is reading. In the planning phase, if there is a gap in understanding, the reader tries to select the appropriate strategies. And in the regulation phase, the selected strategies are used to solve the comprehension problems. These strategies include reconsideration, slow reading, and the reinterpretation of the particular parts of the text, evaluating mental representations and resolving the ambiguities. Methodology It was a mixed methods study. The aim was to answer three questions about methods for evaluating comprehension monitoring, using them for developing comprehension monitoring test and studying the validity and reliability of the designed test. The qualitative part of the study included finding an appropriate test for assessing comprehension monitoring of adult and its nativization, and also sending it to 5 experts in order to check its content validity. The quantitative part of the study included the pilot study of the nativized test to determine its reliability using Cronbach Alpha coefficient. The sample included 30 MA students of the University of Guilan, who were selected using the convenience sampling method. Results and Discussion In accordance with the three research questions, the findings are presented in three parts. In order to answer the first question, the results showed that there are three approaches to comprehension monitoring: introspective, calibration, and error detection. The introspective approach requires readers to report their mental activity during reading (think-aloud). In the second approach, the reader is asked to answer the comprehension questions and calibrating them according to his degree of assurance towards his answers. The third approach meaning the error rhgtory sentences, in the way that contradicts the subject's prior knowledge. The extent to which these contradictions are detected shows the reader's level of comprehension monitoring. In response to the second research question, it was identified that the most comprehensive tool which covers all these three approaches is Baker & Anderson's (1982) comprehension monitoring test. The nativized version of this tool was developed in the form of software which could record various comprehension monitoring components simultaneously, including the time of the study of inconsistent sentences, the number of re-readings, and the responses of the subjects. To answer the third research question, the test was sent to 5 experts and after revising the questions and contradictory sentences based on their comments, its content validity was verified. To ensure the test reliability, it was distributed among a sample of 30 MA students of the University of Guilan. The amount of Cronbach's alpha was 0.72 for answering the questions, 0.70 for error detection and 0.68 for calibration, showing the appropriate reliability. Conclusion and Suggestions This test can be a desirable tool for assessing reading comprehension monitoring level of Iranian adults in terms of ease of implementation and scoring. In the next study, the test should be distributed among a larger sample of high school students, university students and literate adults in order to examine its construct validity and compute the norms for each group, respectively. Then, it also can be used as a comprehension monitoring tool at different educational levels.
