Abstract

We investigated the contribution of morphological awareness to university students’ reading comprehension ability. Although there is considerable evidence that morphological awareness contributes to children’s reading ability, there is much less evidence concerning adults; the few studies of adults have not controlled other known predictors of reading comprehension. Furthermore, there is little information about the predictors of morphological awareness. Measures related to word reading (phonological decoding, orthographic processing), language comprehension (vocabulary, inferences, working memory), morphological awareness, and reading (reading speed and reading comprehension) were administered to 71 undergraduate students. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that (a) morphological awareness was predicted by orthographic processing and the three language comprehension measures, (b) morphological awareness was a significant predictor of both reading speed and reading comprehension, after controlling all of the other predictors, and (c) morphological awareness continued to predict reading comprehension after also controlling text reading speed. These results demonstrate that morphological awareness is still an important individual difference factor for proficient adult readers. We discuss the implications of these results for assessment and university instruction.

摘要

我们调查了形态意识对大学生阅读理解能力的贡献。尽管有大量证据表明形态意识有助于儿童的阅读能力，但有关成年人的证据却很少。很少有成年人研究不能控制其他已知的阅读理解预测因子。此外，关于形态意识的预测因子的信息很少。对71名大学生进行了与单词阅读（语音解码，正字处理），语言理解（词汇，推理，工作记忆），形态意识和阅读（阅读速度和阅读理解）相关的措施。等级回归分析表明（a）形态意识是通过正交处理和三种语言理解措施预测的，（b）形态意识是控制所有其他预测因子后对阅读速度和阅读理解的重要预测因子，并且（c ）形态意识在控制文本阅读速度之后仍继续预测阅读理解。这些结果表明，对于熟练的成人读者，形态意识仍然是重要的个体差异因素。我们讨论了这些结果对评估和大学教学的影响。（c）形态意识在控制文本阅读速度之后仍继续预测阅读理解。这些结果表明，对于熟练的成人读者，形态意识仍然是重要的个体差异因素。我们讨论了这些结果对评估和大学教学的影响。（c）形态意识在控制文本阅读速度之后仍继续预测阅读理解。这些结果表明，对于熟练的成人读者，形态意识仍然是重要的个体差异因素。我们讨论了这些结果对评估和大学教学的影响。