The Nature of Response Errors for Good and Poor Readers When Permitted to Reinspect Text During Question-Answering

This study assessed strategy differences between good and poor readers during reading comprehension assessments employing a text-lookback condition. Sixty good and 60 poor readers read expository passages and responded to free-response items tapping text-explicit information (stated directly in the passage) and text-implicit information (implied but not directly stated in the passage). Subjects were permitted to look back to the passages during question-answering. Responses were analyzed according to the following types of errors: text-based language, reader-based knowledge, and no-response. Several statistically significant effects were noted using both absolute and relative error rates in analyses. Poor readers tended to use strategies related to text-language or would not respond, whereas good readers tended to be more effective overall and to use more reader-based knowledge in responses. Implications are drawn for the characterization of important differences between good and poor readers and for the assessment of reading comprehension processes for different types of readers.