Morphological Awareness and College Student Reading Comprehension
Abstract
Morphological awareness is understanding how words are composed of smaller units including roots, prefixes, and suffixes. Recent research has found that college students with greater morphological awareness have greater reading comprehension skills. However, this work has exclusively used standardized measures of reading comprehension (e.g., the Nelson-Denny Reading Test) that have been criticized for not capturing the type of reading college students actually do. Therefore, we ask if morphological awareness is related to a more ecologically valid measure of college student reading comprehension. In this study, college students (current N = 88) completed measures of morphological awareness and then read a passage from a popular college-level political science textbook. To measure reading comprehension, students then completed quiz questions from the textbook’s study guide. We predict that students with greater morphological awareness will have greater reading comprehension than students with less morphological awareness. The findings of this study will help us better understand the role of morphological awareness in adult reading comprehension and potentially suggest morphological awareness as an avenue to better support college student reading and achievement.
Morphological Awareness and College Student Reading Comprehension
Halllway North of the Bookstore
Morphological awareness is understanding how words are composed of smaller units including roots, prefixes, and suffixes. Recent research has found that college students with greater morphological awareness have greater reading comprehension skills. However, this work has exclusively used standardized measures of reading comprehension (e.g., the Nelson-Denny Reading Test) that have been criticized for not capturing the type of reading college students actually do. Therefore, we ask if morphological awareness is related to a more ecologically valid measure of college student reading comprehension. In this study, college students (current N = 88) completed measures of morphological awareness and then read a passage from a popular college-level political science textbook. To measure reading comprehension, students then completed quiz questions from the textbook’s study guide. We predict that students with greater morphological awareness will have greater reading comprehension than students with less morphological awareness. The findings of this study will help us better understand the role of morphological awareness in adult reading comprehension and potentially suggest morphological awareness as an avenue to better support college student reading and achievement.