Research: How test-taking strategies affect students’ reading comprehension
When students read entire passages for comprehension before reading the questions, they are likely to find answers to comprehension questions in the text more precisely and more efficiently, according to new research from the University of Georgia.
The study comes from a research team including Scott Ardoin, associate dean for research and graduate education in the Mary Frances Early College of Education and professor in the Department of Educational Psychology. The team used eye-tracking technology to observe and measure students’ question reading and responding behavior.
Third, fifth, and eighth grade students read both narrative and expository passages, and the research team coded students’ test-taking strategies—reading the entire passage first, reading only part of the passage before referencing the questions, or reading the questions before reading the passage—to determine the effort and time students used to correctly answer the questions.