May 3, 2022
Readers have different motivations and approaches to text that cover a range of topics and difficulty levels. An international team of scholars developed The Readers' Approaches to Test Questionnaire (TReAT-Q) to examine how readers' approaches to text are linked to reading comprehension.
Main takeaways from this research:
- Readers who have positive approaches to text appear to be those who enjoy reading and read challenging texts that require reading strategies to reach a level of understanding.
- TReAT-Q incorporates the positive and negative approaches readers have to texts, which is fundamental for assessing what readers gain from their reading experiences that assists reading comprehension.
Readers have different motivations and approaches to text that cover a range of topics and difficulty levels. An international team of scholars developed The Readers' Approaches to Test Questionnaire (TReAT-Q) to examine how readers' approaches to text are linked to reading comprehension.
Reading comprehension involves multiple components, from the identification of words to meaning and integration processes, and the updating of mental models that result in global comprehension, all supported by multiple sources of linguistic and conceptual knowledge.
Ignored in a purely cognitive process analysis, however, are the differences among readers in how they approach reading situations – their motivation or approaches to text.
Research by an international team of scholars including Pitt grad Regina Calloway, currently at the University of Maryland, Anne Helder, Leiden University, and LRDC Director Charles Perfetti, investigated readers' approaches to text to explore the possibility of a link between motivational and cognitive aspects of reading comprehension.
The research team developed The Readers' Approaches to Text Questionnaire, TReAT-Q, a 31-question survey and tested it with a community sample. An analysis of readers' responses to TReAT-Q identified four subscales:
- intrinsic goals,
- extrinsic goals and strategies,
- effort at understanding, and
- avoidance of text difficulty.
Calloway and colleagues then carried out two studies. In Study One, they introduced and measured approaches to text using TReAT-Q with adults. Three of the four factors (all but avoidance of text difficulty) predicted adults' reading experience above and beyond the related, but more general, measure of need for cognition. In Study Two, they sought to establish a link between TReAT-Q and its relation to reading experience and comprehension skill in college students. Again, three of the four subscales (all but effort at understanding) contributed to the readers' approaches to text latent construct. A subsequent analysis that evaluated a cognitive model of reading comprehension showed that college students' TReAT-Q scores predicted reading comprehension through an indirect pathway, mediated by reading experience and vocabulary knowledge
The studies demonstrated that readers' approaches to text, as measured via TReAT-Q, was positively associated with reading experience, which indirectly related to reading comprehension. Readers who have positive approaches to text appear to be those who enjoy reading and read challenging texts that require reading strategies to reach a level of understanding. Examining readers' approaches to text within a cognitive model of reading comprehension provides insight into whether readers have greater reading experiences that are linked to increased vocabulary knowledge, and consequently, reading comprehension. Exactly how readers' approaches to text are predictive of reading comprehension for specific reading situations (e.g., for leisure vs. work) must still be examined.
Calloway, R.C., Helder, A. & Perfetti, C.A. A measure of individual differences in readers' approaches to text and its relation to reading experience and reading comprehension. Behavior Research Methods (2022).