Topic Interest, Relevance, and Causal Reasoning

in L2 Text Comprehension

Yukie Horiba & Keiko Fukaya(Kanda University of International Studies) (St. Luke’s College of Nursing)

Abstract Nursing (high-interest) and Non-nursing (low-interest)

majors read and recalled a narrative text about a patient’s case. It was found:

1)Both groups recalled events on the causal chain better than dead-ends. They also recalled events with more causal connections than events with fewer connections.

2) High-interest group’s recall of health-care relevant information was as good as their recall of general information, while low-interest group’s recall of health care information was significantly poor.

Thus, knowledge of the causal world generally facilitated L2 text comprehension, whereas relevance of content information affected recall differently between high- and low-interest readers.

Background

• A successful comprehension of a text requires that the reader understand individual ideas and relations and make connections between textual information and general knowledge. Readers, through engaging in the interaction between linguistic and conceptual processes, try to construct a coherent representation of the text.

(Graesser, Millis, & Zwaan, 1997; Kintsch, 1998)

• Readers of a story narrative text utilize general knowledge to perceive the causal relations between events described in the text. In particular, events’ causal-chain status and causal connectivity are important to the comprehension and memory of the text.

(Graesser, Millis, & Zwaan, 1997; Trabasso, Secco, & van den Broek 1984; Horiba, van den Broek, & Fletcher, 1993)

• Reader interest influences the relevance of content information in the text, affecting their process and representation of the text.

(Alexander, Jetton, & Kulikowich, 1996; Bugel & Buunk, 1996; Kaakinen & Hyona, 2005; McNamara, 2007)

However, it has not been made clear how topic interest may influence the effect of a text’s causal structure and that of relevance of content information on comprehension and recall of a L2 narrative text.

==> The present study

Research QuestionsQ1: Do L2 readers recall events with more causal co

nnections better than events with fewer connections?

Q2: Do they recall events that are on the causal chain better than events that are off the chain?

Q3: Do Nursing majors recall ‘health care’ related information relatively better than Nonnursing majors?

Method

Participants: 34 Nursing (high-interest) + 37 Non-nursing (low-interest) majors

[L1 Japanese college freshmen / EFL students]

TOEFL-ITP (%) VLT (%)

M SD M SD

Nurse 65.7 7.6 67.5 15.0

Nonnurse 72.1 7.4 77.0 13.1

Passage: One narrative text about a case of a patient (“Who should decide the treatment?”)

Procedure: Participants read a text and later wrote their recall.

Analysis: Recall protocols were analyzed for 1) events’ causal-chain status and causal connectivity (Trabasso, Secco, & van den Broek, 1984) 　　 2) propositions (Bovair & Kieras, 1985).

Passage: “Who Decides the Treatment?”

Michael Cantos, a 15-year-old, who has recurrent metastatic Ewing sarcoma, has been hospitalized with fever and neutropenia, common complications of his recent chemotherapy. Michael lives with his parents, two younger siblings, and his paternal grandmother….. When Michael was first diagnosed, he was told that this type of cancer was aggressive and had already spread from the primary site in his pelvis to his bronchi and parenchyma… In the team conference, a new registered nurse expresses frustration …..Decisions are made by consensus.

{Note: The underlined words were glossed with the L1 translation.}

A Sample list of Events/States: (43 events in total) E1 ： Michael Cantos, a 15-year-old, E2 ： who has recurrent metastatic Ewing sarcoma, E3 ： has been hospitalized with fever and neutropenia, E4 ： common complications of his recent chemotherapy. E5 ： Michael lives with his parents, two younger siblings, and his paternal grandmother. E6 ： His parents and grandmother were born in the Philippines E7 ： and emigrated to the United States about 30 years ago; E8 ： all three of the Cantos children were born in this country.

1 2 3

45

6 7 8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19 20

21

22

23

24

43

26

25 27

28 29 30

31

32 33 34

35

36 37 38 39

40

42

41

U

UU

UU

U

Causal network structure of the Decision text

Result

Probability of event recall as a function of causal-chain status

Group

Causal-chain status

On Off

M SD M SD

Nurse (n=34) .45 .04 .27 .09

Nonnurse (n=37)

.45 .04 .23 .09

{Nurse: F(1,42) = 3.74, p = .06; Nonnurse: F(1,42) = 5.18, p = .03}

Both Nurse and Nonnurse groups recalled on-chain events significantly better than off-chain events.

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

On-chain(n=8)

Off-chain(n=35)

Nurse

Nonnurse

Probability of event recall as a function of causal connections

{Nurse: F(1,42) = 4.20, p = .05, Nonnurse: F(1,42) = 2.41, p = .13}

GroupNo. of connections

1 2 3 4 5

Nurse (n=34) .28 .42 .39 .55 .65

Nonnurse (n=37)

.32 .40 .38 .52 .61

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

1 (n

=6)

2 (n

=13

)

3 (n

=16

)

4 (n

=6)

5 (n

=2)

Nurse

Nonnurse

Nurse group recalled events with more causal connections significantly better than events with fewer connections. On the other hand, the Nonnurse group did not show a significant effect of causal connectivity on their event recall.

{*Health care related words are Italicized.}A sample list of propositions: (209 propositions in total) S1: Michael Cantos, a 15-year-old who has recurrent met

astatic Ewing sarcoma, has been hospitalized with fever and neutropenia, common complications of his recent chemotherapy.

P1: HOSPITALIZE [$ MICHAEL-C] P2: WITH [P1 P3] P3: AND [FEVER NEUROPENIA] P4: REF [P3 COMPLICATION] P5: OF [COMPLICATION CHEMOTHERAPY] P6: MOD [COMPLICATION COMMON] P7: POSSESS [MICHARL CHEMOTHERAPY] P8: TIME [CHEMOTHERAPY RECENT] P9: REF [MICHAEL 15-YEAR-OLD] P10: POSSESS [15-YEAR-OLD EWING-SARCOMA] P11: MOD [EWING-SARCOMA METASTATIC] P12: MOD [EWING-SARCOMA RECURRENT]

Probability of proposition recall as a

function of content

Group

Topic

Health-care General

M SD M SD

Nurse (n=34) .23 .03 .26 .02

Nonnurse (n=37)

.19 .03 .27 .02

{Nurse: F(1,208) = 1.16, p = .28, Nonnurse: F(1,208) = 6.17, p = .01}

0

0.2

0.4

0.6

0.8

Health-care(n=71)

General(n=138)

Nurse

Nonnurse

Nurse group recalled health-care related information as well as general information, whereas Nonnurse group recalled health-care related information more poorly than general information.

Discussion

1. Nurse & Nonnurse:

On-chain events ＞ Off- chain events

These L2 readers were generally sensitive to the relative importance of events in the situation that are described in the text.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 The causal chain effect

2. Nurse:

　 More connected events ＞ Less connected events

Nonnurse:

　 More connected events Less connected events≧

L2 readers with high interest in the topic of the text (i.e., Nursing majors) were more successful, than those with less interest (i.e., Nonnursing majors), in understanding how events are causally connected to each other in the situation described in the text.

　　　　 　　　　　　　　 The causal connectivity effect

3. Nurse:

　　　　 General information = Health-care information

　　 Nonnurse:

　　　　 General information ＞ Health-care information

L2 readers with high interest (i.e.,nurse group) found health-care related information relevant and strongly encoded them in their representation of the text. Those with less interest (i.e., nonnurse group) did not find health-care information relevant and did not encode them in text memory.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　 The relevancy effect

Conclusion

1. L2 readers utilize general knowledge of causal world and construct a representation of the content of a text. As a result, their recalls show the effect of causal-chain status and causal connectivity of events in the text.

2. Those with high interest in the topic of the text may be sensitive to the relevancy of content information (i.e., health-care information) and encode relevant information strongly into their representation of the text. They are also more successful in representing how events are connected to other events via antecedent-consequence relationship in the situation described in the text.

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