Date of Award

4-1984

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Dr. R. Wayne Fuqua

Second Advisor

Dr. Richard Malott

Third Advisor

Dr. Chris Koronakos

Access Setting

Masters Thesis-Open Access

Abstract

Twelve college students volunteered to participate in a special section of an introductory psychology course at Western Michigan University. A multiple baseline design across groups was used to assess differences in reading comprehension between students who received study objectives written by the instructor and students trained to write their own study objectives. Quizzes and examinations were used to assess students' reading comprehension of course materials. A comparison of pre- and post-test scores on the Nelson-Denny Reading Comprehension Test was used to determine whether students had acquired skills which aided their comprehension of other materials. Results indicated no statistically significant differences between groups on quizzes, examinations or on the pre/post-test measures. However, students scoring below the 50th percentile on the comprehension pretest showed significant gains on the post-test, t(7) = -5.801, P<.05, suggesting acquisition of general reading comprehension skills.

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