Interpreting Reading Comprehension Test Results: Quantile Regression Shows that Explanatory Factors Can Vary with Performance Level
Publication Date
3-15-2017
Document Type
Article
Organizational Units
College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences, Psychology
Keywords
Reading comprehension, Quantile regression, Standardized tests
Abstract
One of the most important findings to emerge from recent reading comprehension research is that there are large differences between tests in what they assess—specifically, the extent to which performance depends on word recognition versus listening comprehension skills. Because this research used ordinary least squares regression, it is not clear that the findings apply similarly to poor and good readers. The current study uses quantile regression to assess whether there might be differences within tests in the relative contributions of component skills as a function of performance level. There were 834 individuals (ages 8–18) who took 5 reading comprehension tests. Quantile regression showed that, for 3 of 5 tests, the contributions of word recognition and listening comprehension vary as a function of reading comprehension skill. These quantile differences hold across both younger and older readers. Our findings show that what skills a test assesses vary not only with the specific test used but also with how well the person performs.
Copyright Date
3-15-2017
Copyright Statement / License for Reuse
All Rights Reserved.
Publication Statement
Copyright is held by the Society for the Scientific Study of Reading. User is responsible for all copyright compliance. This article was originally published as:
Hua, A. N., & Keenan, J. M. (2017). Interpreting reading comprehension test results: Quantile regression shows that explanatory factors can vary with performance level. Scientific Studies of Reading, 21(3), 225-238. https://doi.org/10.1080/10888438.2017.1280675
Rights Holder
Society for the Scientific Study of Reading
Provenance
Received from CHORUS
Language
English (eng)
Publication Title
Scientific Studies of Reading
Volume
21
Issue
3
First Page
225
Last Page
238
ISSN
1532-799X
Recommended Citation
Hua, A. N., & Keenan, J. M. (2017). Interpreting reading comprehension test results: Quantile regression shows that explanatory factors can vary with performance level. Scientific Studies of Reading, 21(3), 225-238. https://doi.org/10.1080/10888438.2017.1280675