Thesis (Ed.M.)--Boston University / The purpose of this study is to obtain a better understanding of the nature and presence of the imagery that children have while reading silently, and to determine the relationship of this imagery to the comprehension of the material read. In this study mental imagery is defined as the perceptions in the imagination which accompany reading. This includes auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory, and gustatory imagery as well as visual imagery. Comprehension is defined for this study as the ability to score on the tests accompanying the reading selections.

Graduate

Class of 2014 Abstract / Specific Aims: The purpose of this study is to determine if people who take or manage medications attend to the prescription warning labels (PWLs) and if education levels affect how they interpret these warnings. The primary hypothesis is that people without a high school degree/equivalent will have more difficulty correctly interpreting PWLs. Methods: A survey was designed to assess whether or not the general population attends to warning labels and if education levels affect how they interpret these warnings. The survey contained questions to assess PWL attendance, a quiz to assess PWL interpretation, and demographic information. Surveys were collected at Joel Valdez Main Library in Tucson, AZ from August 2013 to January 2014. For data analysis, the percentage of participants who attended to warning labels was calculated. To compare the two education groups a Chi square analysis was performed. Main Results: A total of 113 participants took the survey and 4 were excluded from analysis. The survey was completed by 55 men (51.4%) and 52 women (48.6%). The mean age of participants was 46.9 years (SD +/- 15.3). Of the participants who took and /or managed medications, 46.8 % of them attended to the PWLs. There was a significant difference in the number of correct responses between the education groups for only one of the PWLs (“external use only”) with a p-value of 0.03. Conclusion: The majority of the general public does not attend to PWLs. Education level does not significantly affect the interpretation of most PWLs.

No description available.

An important question in the field of reading development is whether models of reading, which apply largely to monolingual English (L1) learners, also apply to English as a Second Language (ESL) learners. The pursuit of such an inquiry is critical to the development of empirically valid models of reading in ESL populations. This study investigated the nature and determinants of the developmental pathways of reading comprehension in ESL (N=153) and L1 learners (N=593) from the fourth to the seventh grade. Two research questions guided the research: (1) How similar are ESL learners to L1 learners in their reading comprehension growth trajectories? (2) How similar are ESL learners to L1 learners in the determinants of their reading comprehension growth trajectories? The following basic processes of reading comprehension were examined: phonological awareness, pseudoword decoding, word identification, reading fluency, and syntactic awareness. Using latent growth modeling, the study found that ESL learners were identical to L1 learners in the functional form (both showed linear growth), slope or rate of growth, intra-individual variability, and linguistic determinants, of their reading comprehension growth trajectories. However, they were weaker than L1 learners in their reading comprehension skill levels. These results provide compelling support for the applicability of L1 models of reading comprehension for ESL learners, and help shape an emergent conceptualization of reading comprehension development for ESL learners. / Education, Faculty of / Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education (ECPS), Department of / Graduate

Research in radio education has been confined largely to surveys so far, and very little has been done to investigate listening, the general field of this study. The purpose of the experiment was to discover the differences if any between the comprehension and retention of material presented to grade V of VI pupils directly and by means of transcriptions, as measured by both immediate and delayed recall tests. The principal questions to be decided were whether the absence of “visual cues” would make any difference in favour the recorded presentation. In all, eight classes were used from four Vancouver schools, four from each of the two grades. Children were selected as a representative sampling of the Vancouver school population, and were found to have a mean I.Q. only slightly above that for the whole school population of the city. When absences had been taken into account, 192 cases were left from which complete results were obtained. Eighteen paragraphs were used for the test, four of these “dummies” for trial purposes and the remainder in two parallel forms of the Dominion silent reading tests. This was simple factual material prepared for the use of grades V and VI. Tests were administered at the rate of two a day for five days, and five days later a delayed test on one set of seven paragraphs was given. The groups were then rotated and the same procedure followed for the other set of paragraphs. Tests were in the form of four simple multiple choice questions for each paragraph. Rotation of time, class, material and type of presentation was made possible in the pattern of the experiment. One reading voice and one test administrator were used throughout. In this way such factors as novelty, fatigue and practice were cancelled out. Each of the four schools and all the classes were visited once each day, two schools in the morning and two in the afternoon, at regular times. For the recorded part of the test, paragraphs were transcribed and portable playback equipment was taken from school to school. The experiment was arranged in such a way that at each school on each day one class was receiving “live” and one class recorded material. For the recorded part of the test, directions were also transcribed, so that in this section even the test directions were given by means for recordings. The plan was carried out substantially as arranged, and with only one or two minor delays of not more than one hour or two. Results may be summarized as follows: a. A general trend in favour of “live” presentation was definitely noticed. b. Scores for the total group were significantly in favour of the “live” presentation, but more scores for the grade VI group were not significantly different either way. c. Boys’ scores were not significantly different but girls’ scores were. Boys’ scores were noticeably higher than girls’ scores. d. Upper and lower quartiles of the I.Q. distribution were examined, but there was no significant difference in either group. Since this experiment was organized in such a way as to make the “live” and recorded presentations as similar as possible, it follows that in this case the record was merely duplicating the teachers. Such is not the case with radio, other factors operating to justify the use of school broadcasts. / Education, Faculty of / Graduate

The present study considered a concept as the sum of two components: attributes and a rule. Extension of this model to the process of concept acquisition led to the notion of two component processes: attribute identification and rule learning. A subject provided with the relevant attributes in a task has only to acquire the correct conceptual rule. This process was called rule learning (RL). Initial provision of the appropriate rule requires only the acquisition of the relevant attributes, a process called attribute identification (Al). Provision of no initial information requires the learner to acquire both conceptual components. This process is called complete learning (CL). Seventy-two subjects were divided into six training groups. Five of these groups were assigned to learning paradigms that provided training on two complex concepts under varying amounts of initial information (CL-CL; AI-AI; AI-RL; RL-AI; and RL-RL). The sixth group acted as a control and performed filler tasks in place of the training tasks. The results showed that first-task learning in the paradigms had a significant effect on transfer performance. RL-first learners manifested the best transfer performance. An analysis of acquisition performance on the first learning task showed superior performance on the RL task followed by Al and CL tasks in that order. Implications of these results to practical classroom activity were discussed and illustrated with the use of an example from science education. / Education, Faculty of / Educational and Counselling Psychology, and Special Education (ECPS), Department of / Graduate

This study investigated the effects of headings and text organization on grade 5 through 10 students' written recall of expository prose passages written in a classification/description mode. Emphasis was placed on the results from students in grades 9 and 10. This study was a component of a three part study. The other two parallel studies emphasized grades 5 and 6 (Stables, 1985) and 7 and 8 (King, 1985). Each subject read and recalled two passages: one written at his or her grade level and one written at a low readability level. Performance on the written recalls from passages with headings and without headings was examined on the basis of the number of superordinate and subordinate ideas recalled, the superordinate and subordinate organization, and the format. Developmental trends were investigated by including the data from the two parallel studies (Stables, 1985; King, 1985). There was some evidence that headings had a significant effect on the number of superordinate ideas recalled from a passage of low readability. Some significant differences indicated negative effects by headings. The majority of differences, however, were not significant. Developmental trends in grades 5 through 10 were noted in the number of ideas recalled on a low readability passage and the format used on the written recalls. Implications for instruction and suggestions for further research are discussed. / Education, Faculty of / Language and Literacy Education (LLED), Department of / Graduate

This study investigated the effects of metaphor on children's comprehension of expository text. Forty-six seventh-grade students read either the metaphorical or the literal versions of two texts each containing eight targets, that is, metaphors or their equivalent literal phrases. One text, "Polar Bears," described a topic familiar to the students while the other, "Wombats," described an unfamiliar topic. After reading each text, students orally recalled as much information as possible, and then answered oral probe questions. Students who read the metaphoric versions of the texts also completed a written recognition-of-meaning test as an additional measure of metaphor comprehension. There was no difference between students' comprehension of the metaphoric texts and their comprehension of the literal texts. There was, however, a facilitative effect for metaphor on students' comprehension of target information when the topic of the text was unfamiliar. Students were able to recall the information conveyed by the metaphors and to recognize the correct interpretations of the metaphors better from the unfamiliar text than from the familiar metaphoric text. Students' ability to answer factual questions based on the metaphors, however, was no different from the familiar text than it was from the unfamiliar text. This finding was interpreted as demonstrating an effect of a kind, for topic significantly affected the other measures of probed recall in favour of the familiar topic. The different findings of the free recall and recognition of meaning measures, and the probe recall measures regarding target comprehension were likely due to the different task constraints of these sets of measures. It was noted that there is a need for further research on the relationship and nature of these widely-used measures of comprehension. It was concluded that although metaphors appear with some frequency in basal readers, metaphor is not a troublesome aspect of language which children need to be taught to analyze and to interpret. If children are experiencing difficulties comprehending texts containing metaphors, they will likely benefit from curriculum activities designed to develop their vocabulary, their experience with language and literature, and their knowledge of the world. / Education, Faculty of / Language and Literacy Education (LLED), Department of / Graduate

This study investigated the effects of headings and text organization on grade 5 through 10 students' written recall of expository prose passages written in a classification/description mode. Emphasis was placed on the results from students in grades 5 and 6. This study was a component of a three part study. The other two parallel studies emphasized grades 7 and 8 (King, 1985) and 9 and 10 (Gibbs, 1985). Each subject read and recalled two passages: one written at his or her grade level and one written at a low readability level. Performance on the written recalls from passages with headings and without headings was examined on the basis of the number of superordinate and subordinate ideas recalled, the superordinate and subordinate organization, and the format. Developmental trends were investigated by including the data from the two parallel studies (Gibbs, 1985; King, 1985). There was some evidence that headings had a significant positive effect on the number of superordinate ideas recalled from a passage of low readability. Some significant differences indicated negative effects by headings. The majority of differences, however, were not significant. Developmental trends in grades 5 through 10 were noted in the number of ideas recalled on a low readability passage and the format used on the written recalls. Implications for instruction and suggestions for further research are discussed. / Education, Faculty of / Language and Literacy Education (LLED), Department of / Graduate