Postpassage Questions: Task and Reader Effects on Comprehension and Metacomprehension Processes

Abstract

This investigation explored the effects of question task conditions on reading comprehension and metacomprehension for subjects differing in reading ability and English language proficiency. Proficient readers, disabled readers, and deaf readers read expository passages and completed selected-response and constructed-response question tasks under both lookback and no-lookback conditions. In addition, subjects rated their perceived comprehension adequacy both after reading each passage and after responding to the questions. Several significant interaction effects were found for both demonstrated and perceived comprehension performance, most notably with lookback tasks. However, overlaps between comprehension and metacomprehension processes were not comparable across reader groups. Implications are drawn for further research concerning interactions of individual differences with reading comprehension tasks.