Age-Related Differences in Implicit Theories of Reading

8/14/2019 Age-Related Differences in Implicit Theories of Reading

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AGE-RELATED DIFFERENCES IN IMPLICIT THEORIES OF READING

M Cecil Smith.

Joan T. RunneWesley C. Covalt

Northern Illinois UniversityDeKalb, IL 60115-2854

(815) 753-8448 fax# (815) 753-2100


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AGE-RELATED DIFFERENCES IN IMPLICIT THEORIES OF READING

Developmental changes in metacognitive abilities have occupied a central role in

cognitive research for at least the past decade. Metacognitive abilities include both the

knowledge possessed by the learner about their cognitive abilities and the strategies for

regulating cognitive activities (Baker & Brown, 1984). Metacognitive research has

focused attention in two areas: memory abilities (e.g., learning vocabulary, text recall) and

reading (e.g., strategies for comprehending text information). The bulk of metacognitive

research has concerned the development of metacognitive abilities in children (Paris,

Wasik, & Turner, 1991).

Research concerned with the development of adults' metacognitive abilities has

generally been limited to studies of metamemory, that is, knowledgeof one's memory

abilities and capacities, and strategies for enhancing one's memory (Lachman, Lachman, &Thronesbery, 1979). The findings concerning developmental changes in metamemory

abilities have been marked by inconsistencies. While Lachman et al. (1979) found that

metamemory continues to improve across the life span, Murphy et al. (1981) found

evidence for age-related declines, and Perlmutter (1978) found no such changes. Brigham

and Pressley (1989) found that older adults possessed less metacognitive awareness about

strategies for learning vocabulary items than did younger adults.

A somewhat smaller set of studies examines age differences in comprehension

monitoring ability when reading (Zabrucky, Moore, & Schultz, 1987). Older adults were

shown to better calibrate, or accurately assess, their comprehension than do younger Ss

when reading texts containing inserted errors. Research on adults' metacognitive

knowledge about reading, however, is sparse.

One aspect of metacognitive knowledge that has been overlooked to date is

concerned with readers' implicit theories about reading. Implicit theories are defined as

personal constructions about some particular phenomenon that reside in the minds of

individuals (Furnham, 1988; Sternberg, Conway, Ketron, & Bernstein, 1981). More

simply, implicit theories may be thought of as personal beliefs. Just as knowledge about

cognition is viewed as one component of metacognition (Baker & Brown, 1984), implicittheories about reading skills may be seen as a subset of metacognitive knowledge. The

prevailing assumption regarding metacognitive knowledge is that such knowledge enables

the effective use of strategies for learning.

Implicit theories have several characteristics. They are typically ambiguous and

inconsistent in regards to explanation for phenomena, tend to be descriptive of types or


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categories of phenomena, often confuse cause and effect, and are deductive rather than

inductive (Furnham, 1988). Furnham notes that implicit theories can, and often do,

overlap with scientific theories and may function in similar ways. In fact, formal scientific

theories often originate from the implicit theories and initial informal observations of

scientists.Sarbin et al. (1960) list four main sources for the origination of implicit theories:

induction or experience; construction or inference and deductions from observations;

analogy or extrapolation from specific encounters; and authority or acceptance of ideas

from others. Adults may construct implicit theories about skilled reading based on their

own experiences as readers. Adults may infer that particular abilities are present in others

whom they observe and evaluate as good readers. Adults may view the good reader as

analoguous to the gifted runner: good readers are those persons who have natural ability,

work hard, and subsequently, read fast. Finally, the adult may consider good reading to be

the sum total of all that was learned in school from their reading teachers.

Implicit theories may potentially influence strategy knowledge and strategy use in

ways that either enhance or impede performance. If, for example, a person believes that

reading is primarily a word-identification task, then that person may focus his or her

efforts on simply decoding words without attempting to learn how to derive meaning from

the text's message (Gambrell & Heathington, 1981). Even good readers occasionally

resort to low level decoding-oriented explanations when describing what good readers do

when reading (Smith & Covalt, 1991).

The purposes of the present study were to (1) investigate the effects of implicittheories when adults of different ages were engaged in reading tasks designed to

approximate those encountered across a variety of situations in everyday life and (2) to

examine age differences in implicit theories.

METHOD

Sample

The sample consisted of 40 individuals in three groups: young adults (n = 13),

middle-aged adults (n = 14), and older adults (n = 13). The mean ages for each group

were 20.7 (s.d. = 1.49), 39.8 (s.d. = 4.76), and 65.1 (s.d. = 4.27) years, respectively.

Educational attainment for each group equalled 14.86 (s.d. = .52), 16.00 (s.d. = 1.79), and

12.64 (s.d.= 1.72) years of schooling, respectively.

The young adults were university students recruited from teacher education

classes. The middle-aged adults were university non-faculty and non-administrative


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employees who were contacted by letter and asked to participate. The older adult subjects

were recruited for the study when they came to a nearby hospital to participate in a senior

citizen's social group and were not receiving medical treatment. All subjects volunteered

to participate in exchange for an opportunity to win one of four $10.00 gift certificates to

be awarded in a drawing following the completion of data collection.Procedures

Subjects were tested individually in private offices at two locations, a university

counseling laboratory (young and middle-aged adults) and a suburban hospital (older

adults). Testing of all subjects was conducted by the first two investigators and two

graduate assistants.

Subjects first completed a questionnaire to provide demographic information, then

rated their prior knowledge of the five topics contained within the reading tasks. An 8-

point Likert-type scale was used for these ratings (0="know nothing," 7="am an expert").

Next, they were given an abbreviated version of the Vocabulary subtest of the Nelson-

Denny Reading Test (NDRT). This version consisted of one-half of the items (every other

item) for a total of 50 items. Administration time was reduced from 15 to 10 minutes.

Reading tasks. Three reading tasks were developed to approximate the kinds of

real-life reading activities that the subjects could have been expected to do at some time in

their lives. Due to time limitations, each subject was assigned to only two of the three

reading tasks. Across the three tasks, subjects were given two trials which were equated

in difficulty.

The first task was an academic reading task in which Ss were instructed to readtwo passages taken from two college-level introductory textbooks in preparation for a

brief open-book quiz following each passage. The passage topics were The structure of

galaxies and Psychotherapy approaches. Both passages contained 210 words. Both

quizzes contained five short-answer, fill-in-the-blank questions that asked for information

contained within the respective passages. The tests required subjects to locate or recall

factual information in the passages; no inferences were required to answer the questions

correctly. The galaxies passage test was worth 8 points and the psychotherapy test was

worth 11 points.

The second task was deemed a work-relatedreading task in which Ss searched for

supplies in a 22-page excerpt from a 500-page industrial arts supplies catalog and for

information needed to order these supplies. For the first trial on this task, Ss were to

locate a wringer press and the least expensive utility cart, and information necessary

for ordering each (e.g., order numbers). The page numbers for these items were contained

in the index; the location of the items could also be inferred from the table of contents, but


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only if the subject had prior knowledge that a wringer press is a printmaking tool and

utility carts are for hauling ceramics. For the second trial, Ss were to locate the minimum

charge for shipping an order by truck and the mailing address of the catalog companys

central office. The first item could be located by first looking in the table of contents

under ordering information. The second item could be located by looking on the orderform at the end of the catalog. Neither item was contained in the index. The maximum

score on either trial was two points (i.e., correctly locating target items).

The final task was a leisurereadingtask in which Ss were instructed to read a brief

newspaper article (e.g., a vacation spot) while thinking about sharing the information with

a friend (in this case, the experimenter). The task thus called for Ss to employ appropriate

strategies to remember the most important information in the passages, such as rote

rehearsal, imagery, elaboration, or notetaking to assist in retelling. One passage (Trial 1)

was titled Smoky Mountains and concerned a rustic hotel vacation spot. The second

passage (Trial 2) was titled Southwest Design and described the charm of the

southwestern United States and the architectural style of homes in the area. Both

passages were 208 words in length.

Accuracy of recall was assessed through number of correct propositions (e.g., a

single idea consisting of a noun and verb) recalled. The Smoky Mountains passage

contained 20 propositions and the Southwest Design passage had 17 propositions.

Implicit theories interview. Following the first trial for any task Ss were asked a

brief series of questions. These questions asked the Ss to consider how a "very good

reader" might have approached and completed the same reading task, how their ownactions differed (if at all) from a "very good reader," and how they might change their

approach to the task based on what they know about very good readers' skills and abilities.

These questions were posed to activate the Ss' implicit theories about reading in general

and, in particular, skilled reading behaviors. Thus, the questions were thought to tap into

subjects' metacognitive awareness about effective reading behaviors or strategies. These

questions, of course, presuppose that adult readers have some ideas about what it is that

good readers do while reading. Following this brief line of questioning, Ss completed the

second trial. In addition, across both trials, Ss were instructed to "think out loud" as they

performed the academic and work-related reading tasks. This think-aloud activity was not

required for the leisure reading task that served as a free recall task.

It was expected that, if activation of an implicit theory serves to heighten

metacognitive awareness, Ss' strategic approaches to the tasks might change on the

second trial as a result of accessing their implicit theories. Therefore, Ss performance on

the second task should improve over the first task. Such improvement should not be due


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solely to practice effects because of the differences in the passages and search tasks across

the three types of reading activities. Previous research has indicated that when test-takers

have an opportunity to reflect upon their performances, accuracy improves on subsequent

testing opportunities (Goodchild, 1990). It was also expected that age differences in

implicit theories might be found. Older adults, having a greater amount of experience witha variety of texts and reading tasks, might be found to have developed more sophisticated,

richer implicit theories about reading. The utility of such implicit theories may interact

with the reading task at hand, however. For example, younger adults, having greater and

more recent experiences with academic texts may have more sophisticated implicit

theories pertaining to academic reading than older adults with relatively less education

and, therefore, less experience with such texts.

RESULTS

As might be expected given cohort and educational differences among the three

age groups, there were significant differences on the Nelson-Denny Reading Test-

Vocabulary (NDRT-V). Mean scores for the young, middle, and older adults were 37.13

(6.37), 42.57 (5.96), and 31.0 (12.80), respectively. Because, however, the administration

of the NDRT-V was not a standardized form of the test, these scores should be taken only

as a crude index of the adults vocabulary skills. Generally, however, we expected that the

older adults, with less education, would perform poorest on this measure, and the middle-

aged adults, with the most education, would perform best.Analyses of variance revealed that the three groups differed only on prior

knowledge of the psychotherapy topic, F = .54, p < .01. The middle-aged subjects had

significantly greater prior knowledge about psychotherapy approaches than did the other

two groups. All other ANOVAs on prior knowledge for the remaining topics were non-

significant.

Changes in Performance Across Trials

We first examined group differences in performance on the three reading tasks. A

series of six (three reading tasks, two trials) one-way ANCOVAs were conducted with

vocabulary score as the covariate. On the academic task, Trial 1 (Galaxies passage), there

were no significant main effects or interactions. On Trial 2 (Psychotherapy passage), there

were significant group main effects favoring the younger (i.e., college) Ss. This effect held

despite the middle aged Ss greater prior knowlege of psychotherapy. Older Ss performed

poorest of the three groups on both academic trials. On the work reading task, there were

no main effects or interactions on either Trial 1 or Trial 2, although the group main effect


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approached significance on Trial 2 (p = .057). Finally, on the leisure reading task, there

were significant group main effects on Trial 1 (Smoky Mountains passage) (F = 4.58, p

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Age-Related Differences in Implicit Theories of Reading