Article Review : Article Expectancy Affects Metacomprehension

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.

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

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.

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,

With the high pressure placed on students to meet the standards of the tests, there may be outside forces that hinder the student’s ability to perform high on one of these tests. The US Department of Education argues: "Although testing may be stressful for some students, testing is a normal and expected way of assessing what students have learned” (Testing: Frequently Asked Questions). However, this type of testing has only become normal because students are expected to participate in such tests. Students have grown accustomed to routinely assessments.

It is widely understood standardized tests could provide an outline on the subjects public schools need to focus on. However, as many students prepare for standardized tests, they find themselves memorizing the information rather than learning the necessities. Although students find themselves memorizing information, ninety-three percent of student studies show a positive effect on student achievement.

More recent research has shown that testing is not just a passive tool for assessing one’s knowledge, but it is actually one of the best tools for studying and remembering for the long-term. Karpicke and Roediger (2008) gave groups of college students a list of 40 Swahili-English word pairs, asked them to study it for a set time and then tested them on the list over a total of four consecutive study-test trials. Group 1 repeatedly studied and was also repeatedly tested over the whole list. In the other three groups, once a student had correctly recognized a Swahili word and recalled its English translation, it was either: repeatedly studied but dropped from further testing (Group 2), repeatedly tested but dropped from further studying (Group 3) or dropped from further studying and testing (Group 4). The results? Both group 1 and group 3 had the highest recall. Repeated studying had no effect on the student’s ability to recall the information on a final test, given one week later. Only repeated testing embedded the information in the memory, enabling the students to recall it later. Another interesting aspect of this study is that the participants were asked, “How many words do you think you will recall in one week?” Students in all conditions believed they would recall approximately 50% of the words. Students exposed to the most testing grossly underestimated their ability to recall the words while

The results of the study to determine if an increase of the Comprehensive Instructional Sequence will increase student reading comprehension will decide if the remainder of the classes will also use Comprehensive Instructional Sequence when decoding complex text. If the results are negative, I will look for another form of decoding and scaffolding to help my students’ reading comprehension

“If the material in the tests is anticipated and becomes the basis for study, then the results tell us only about the level of prep work and nothing else” (Tanner 4). The results no longer offer valuable insight into students’ academic lives, they merely display how well teachers prepared them for the test.

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

In four years, high school students gain information from various subject areas that help them towards preparing them for college. An important method used to check the learning levels of students is in-class tests. These timed tests are given periodically to show how well students are learning from each academic subject. However, there is a question of whether in-class tests actually help high school students prepare for advanced college work. As research, I conducted a survey on a sample of college students about their experiences with classroom tests in high school and their effectiveness in preparing them for college. While most students would think in-class high school tests do not prepare them for college, my survey results show in-class tests help prepare high school students for college because they build students’ academic skills needed to tackle college work. Yet, certain issues with in-class tests, like the studying techniques can be adjusted to better reflect college work.

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 is an essential skill for reasoning and for functioning well in everyday life. The SAT is a test that measures these skills and it is a crucial part of high school students to be admitted into post-secondary schools. A test of this magnitude combined with the increasing competition in college admissions should have test scores increasing as each year passes, but instead, a reverse trend is occurring. The average reading scores have decreased in the last four decades, having dropped an average of thirty-three points from 1972 (Chandler). These drastic decreases in the scores can be attributed to the change in demographics of the test takers and the advancement of technological goods in everyday life.

The situation for other experimental group was as the same a first group but with this difference that they learned discourse markers by using input elaboration technique which is one major type of modification that the complexity of the text and words remains but the input became more comprehensible for students. Therefore, for target items the appropriate synonyms, definitions or any other explanation was provided. As it was mentioned earlier after teaching reading comprehension students had to write down the appropriate discourse marker which was suitable for the context again student’s errors was corrected by the researcher. So, both experimental groups received feedbacks. Each sessions students reading comprehension texts was conducted and scored and handed over to them. This type of

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