Theses and Dissertations

Issuing Body

Mississippi State University

Advisor

Morse, Linda

Committee Member

Elder, Anastasia

Committee Member

Morse, David

Committee Member

Hendren, Glen

Committee Member

Xu, Jianzhong

Other Advisors or Committee Members

Looby, Joan

Date of Degree

8-9-2008

Original embargo terms

MSU Only Indefinitely

Document Type

Dissertation - Campus Access Only

Major

Educational Psychology

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

College

College of Education

Department

Department of Counseling, Educational Psychology and Foundations

Abstract

This study was designed to investigate practical and effective methods of increasing reading compliance, reading comprehension, and metacognitive reading strategies in the college classroom. Participants were recruited from Delta State University, a small university located in Cleveland, MS. There were 148 students who completed the study. 50% of these participants were Caucasian and 42% were African American. The average age of the participant was 20.0 years of age. Students were primarily freshman and sophomore undergraduate students taking a Psychology course. The following instruments were used during the course of this study: The Nelson Denny Reading Test, The College Textbook Questionnaire, The Survey of Reading Compliance (pretest and posttest), two teacher-made comprehension tests, and the Metacognitive Reading Strategies Questionnaire (pretest and posttest). The independent variables in this study were the threat of the Monte Carlo quiz and the availability of the Reader’s Guide. Dependent variables included the scores from the Survey of Reading Compliance (pretest and posttest), scores from the comprehension (pretest and posttest), and scores from the Metacognitive Reading Strategies (pretest and posttest). Results from this study suggested that the majority of college undergraduates reported reading their course textbook 2 hours or less per week. According to the results from the Nelson Denny Reading Test, undergraduates scored relatively high on comprehension. However, performance on the teacher-made comprehension tests based on textbook material was very low. The Metacognitive Reading Strategies Questionnaire suggested that undergraduates are utilizing some basic metacognitive reading strategies, but do not use more sophisticated strategies. The threat of the Monte Carlo quiz had no statistically significant effect on reading compliance, comprehension, or metacognitive reading strategies. The Reader’s Guide did not have a statistically significant effect on reading compliance or comprehension. However, students exposed to the Reader’s Guide experienced a statistically significant increase in the use of metacognitive strategies.

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11668/16330

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