Article Review : Article Expectancy Affects Metacomprehension

Reading Comprehension: Answer questions after reading a variety if stimuli, e.g., note, public sign, poster, e-mail, letter, story, advertisement, article, brochure.

In “Learning Matters: Testing, Testing, Testing” (The Merrow Report, 1997), there was considerable discussion regarding the imapct of testing on students and the various methods that educational institutons could have students show what they know. The most significant information I learned from this video is the distinct intention of creating standardized tests that are biased. One contributor discussed the intent of writing tests for individuals that are best at answering construct being tested. This contributor also states that it is also known that there is a relationship between one’s level of confort and success on a test, having previously infered that tests are biased against those students who don’t turn in homework or miss class. The

One of the main controversial disputes regarding education is if test taking is actually a beneficial form of a learning technique for students. Within the context of Henry L. Roediger III’s article, How Tests Make Us Smarter, Roediger goes into depth upon how giving students “low-stakes quizzes” could help improve their memory as well as consistent and spread out practice. Psychology In Action, written by both Karen Huffman and Katherine Dowdell, also restates similar learning techniques within their first chapter.

In-class tests provide students with new academic skills and as a result, they learn the intellect that prepares them for college work. These types of tests come in a variety of forms. Based on my survey, the common two types of tests these 10 students encountered in high school were timed essays and multiple choice. A majority of these students recorded learning similar skills from both timed essay and multiple choice tests. The skills they learned revolved around time. With the multiple choice format, one student expressed to have learned how to “quickly and efficiently rule out wrong answers”. Multiple choice is seen as one of the easier formats in testing. At first glance, this type of test looks to be only about guessing the answer to a question. Yet, students learn how to think “quickly and efficiently” from multiple choice tests as they challenge students to quickly understand what the variety of questions are asking for and find the best answer choices to each one in a limited amount of time. The challenge shows how influential multiple choice tests are as students build upon their thinking skills because of the way these tests make students think. Based on the survey and my own experience, a thinking skill students

In classrooms all across America, students sit perched over their desks in the process of taking standardized tests. As the students take the tests, teachers pace nervously up and down the rows of their classroom, hoping and praying that their students can recall the information which they have presented. Some children sit relaxed at their desks, calmly filling in the bubbles and answering essay questions. These children are well prepared and equipped to handle their tests. Other children, however, sit hunched over their desks, pondering over questions, trying to guess an answer. They struggle to recall information that has been covered many times in class, but they can’t.

As a result of testing accountability, teachers have changed the shift in their classrooms and focus on teaching to the test. Many criticize that the tests that are administered do not allow for thoughtful or deliberate thinking. Multiple choice questions, condensed reading passages, add to the inauthenticity of the test and can impede the ability of students. Studies have also show that test taking has a negative impact on student achievement in reading, writing, and mathematics. ELL students are still developing their English language skills while learning new content. It is unfair to have the expectations that these ELL students are being held accountable with the same standards as their native-English-speaking peers. ELL students need to have the necessary background knowledge, English language and academic language knowledge to successfully understand test

The role of metadiscourse markers and their explicit instruction in reading comprehension have been studied many research studies (e.g., Camiciottoli, 2003; Intaraprawat & Steffensen, 1995; Vande Kopple, 1985). Moreover, there are studies in Iran as well (e.g., Dastgoshadeh, 2001; Jalilifar & Alipour, 2007; Parvaresh & Nemati, 2008; Aidinlou & Vafaee, 2012; Jalififar & Shooshtari, 2011; Karimi, Tabrizi, Sadeghoghli, 2013; Gholami, Tajjali & Shokrpour,

Yet this is not true. These test only show what they are able to show. They don’t help our students advance in life. Teachers rely so largely on these test that they sometimes base their entire class on a test. That means there is no leeway to arouse discussions on topics that could be helpful to a student. Also, these test can show whether a teacher is performing their job well enough. With that, how students perform on their test predicts whether a teacher keeps their job or not. If we always have a teacher worrying if their students are ready for a test or not, that teacher may be willing to provide cheats or use unhelpful methods to advance their students. This may be detrimental in the long run for our students. If we have to rely in short term memory for a test. Then they are more susceptible to long term memory

Roediger & Karpicke (2005) predict that performance on immediate retention tests would rise with the number of study opportunities, due to massed practice usually only producing short-term results. They also believe that taking a retention directly after a study session would result in superior retention on delayed tests compared to repeatedly studying the material. This would result in proving that test taking as a better means to improve long term retention compared to re-presentation of material during testing.

Scoring 90 percent for reading recall on my MSPA evaluation floored me. While I love to read, I never considered myself as having decent comprehension skills. Rereading passages to ensure I grasp what the author has written is something I do all the time. Having made it to Module 6, I have learned quite a bit regarding myself and how I learn. I am primarily a visual and aural learner, I happen to be right brained rather than left brained and I have mostly an analytical reading style. Knowing I am right brained, I found it odd that my reading style is analytical; however, upon doing additional research I found that was not so strange after all. Rereading the text in a book or an article in a magazine is a recommended strategy in this week’s reading assignment;

Overall, the authors witnessed positive results from all of the students because the number of correct answers increased after the implementation of instruction. Each of the students met the criteria of answering at least four out of five questions correctly: John “on set 1 after 16 instructional sessions, set 2 in 14 sessions, and set 3 in 13 sessions”, Harry “on set 1 in 22 sessions, set 2 in 10 sessions, and set 3 in 18 sessions”, and Matt “on set 1 in 17 instructional sessions, set 2 in 14 sessions, and set 3 in 12 sessions” (Knight et. al 2012). Considering there was a difference in ability and IQ of each of the students, the number of sessions for each set that each student required to move on to the next was relatively close to the other students of the study; this asserts that the instruction used is relatively effective

Standardized tests force students to build and train their memorization skills in the brain instead of focusing them to improving their overall intelligence (Olson). A group of researchers from Santa Monica, California studied elementary and middle school children in North Carolina by analyzing their math and reading scores for a decade between 1990 and 2000. (Olson) . "If one were to look for signs of improvement by closely tracking changes in mean [test] scores from one year to the next, 50 to 80 percent of what one observed would be temporary— either due to sampling variation or some other nonpersistent cause" (qtd in Olsen). When the Boston College's Center for the Study of Testing, Evaluation and Educational Policy surveyed 2,200 teachers and interviewed 300 teachers from six different urban cities, the research resulted to confirm that school’s emphasize the use of memorization instead of reasoning skills due to the raising pressure for students to gain high scores on exams (Chira). These studies reflect the immense dangers of memorization. By memorizing isolated facts, student neglect to logically discover and explore the full understatement of the subject (Orlin). To Ben Orlin, memorization is described as a frontage road: “It runs parallel to the

In chapter two of the dissertation Pearson explains how the research and literature that relate to the relationship of advance organizers to reading comprehension. He discusses the history of the study of reading comprehension and advance organizers. The schema theory is discussed as it relates to the study of advance organizers. Before 1970 reading comprehension was viewed as a process solely activated by the text itself. The views on reading

Often heavily debated on, specifically in an educational setting, is the technique and style in which students are tested. Whether it be multiple choice, true or false, or short answer responses, test takers may respond differently due to certain correlations between the way they are tested, and the way they learn and take tests in general. Using different types of questions for tests has each of their own benefits, as well as drawbacks. Test format, in addition to a student’s age, major and mood, can lead to inaccurate test results which may correlate with improper test formatting. Multiple choice responses provide the student with several relatable choices, one being correct. Students then have a 25% chance of selecting the right response, along with the ability to narrow down the answers. Providing the answer and other comparably subjected answers presented with the question may stimulate the individual’s memory as well. In terms of short answer responses, the individual is forced to recall all components of the experiment. Conversely, in true/false responses, students have a 50% chance of getting the answer correct and are able to make a more precise decision. We predict that true and false responses will yield a higher result than both short answer and multiple choice results. The Power of Negative of Multiple Choice Testing, performed by Roediger III and Marsh, they found that learning was interfered by using a multiple choice format. Also having the test be multiple

Reading comprehension at a knowledge level is a complex task. Reading comprehension instruction that attempts to move students beyond the knowledge level to a place of true understanding is daunting at best and not something that can be left to guess work. A review of current literature in