The Mediating Roles of Gender and Academic Field in the Relationship between Vocabulary Knowledge and Reading Comprehension of EFL Students

Abstract

This study examined the mediating roles of gender and academic field in the relationship between vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension. A vocabulary size test, a vocabulary depth test and the IELTS reading test were administered to 319 university-level students (54 males; 265 females) from three disciplines: medicine, science, and arts. The findings revealed that students had between 2000 and 3000 word families, low vocabulary depth (45.3%), and poor reading comprehension (52.4%). Besides, male students outperformed female students in all study variables. Meanwhile, medical students had superiority over science and arts students in Vocabulary Level Test (VLT) and reading comprehension. Vocabulary breadth and depth were significantly correlated with reading comprehension. The contribution of VLT and Depth of Vocabulary Knowledge (DVK) to reading comprehension differs depending on gender and academic field.