Comprehension processes on question-answering activities: A think-aloud study

Abstract

Introduction. Students often answer questions from available expository texts for assessment and learning purposes. These activities require readers to activate not only meaning-making processes (e.g., paraphrases or elaborations), but also metacognitive operations (e.g., monitoring readers’ own comprehension or self-regulating reading behaviors) in order to successfully use textual information to meet the task demands. The aim of the study was to explore the meaning-making processes readers activate while answering questions and using textual information at hand, and how they monitor and control the processing of these tasks. Method. Forty eighth graders read two expository texts and answered ten multiple-choice comprehension questions per text. For each question, participants were forced to select the relevant pieces of textual information to provide the correct answer. Further, participants thought aloud in one of the texts, whereas they performed the task in silence in the other. This reading scenario served to collect valuable data on the reader’s question-answering process. The task was administered individually on a computer-based environment, which allowed recording the students’ reading behavior online. Results. Results showed processing differences between the two recursive steps of question-answering. While reading the question readers mainly restated information and focused on monitoring the comprehension of the questions and their correspondence with the alternatives. However, they tended to paraphrase and assess textual relevance when searching the text. The study also reveals that think-aloud methodology affected these processes and outcomes differently. Discussion and Conclusion. This study advances on our knowledge of cognitive and metacognitive processes involved in answering questions from an available text, a task extensively used to measure reading literacy skills as well as for learning purposes in academic settings. It shows how readers activate meaning-making processes while reading questions and searching the text for task-relevant information, and how they monitor the question-answering process. The study also reveals that think-aloud methodology may affect these processes differently. Apart from advancing our theoretical knowledge, our study also has important practical applications for the assessment of reading literacy skills.