UMD Theses and Dissertations
Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/1903/3
New submissions to the thesis/dissertation collections are added automatically as they are received from the Graduate School. Currently, the Graduate School deposits all theses and dissertations from a given semester after the official graduation date. This means that there may be up to a 4 month delay in the appearance of a given thesis/dissertation in DRUM.
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Item THE CONTRIBUTION OF EXECUTIVE FUNCTION TO READING COMPREHENSION FOR LINGUISTICALLY DIVERSE LEARNERS(2018) Meyer, Anna; Silverman, Rebecca D; Special Education; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Research suggests that EF can aid in the prediction of RC. However, much of the existing research into the relationship between these two variables has relied on statistical correlations and simple linear regression, neither of which fully capture the complexity of their theoretical relationship and other known contributors to RC, such as decoding and linguistic comprehension. Accordingly, this dissertation study investigated the relationship between EF and RC through a synthesis of the literature and two separate empirical studies. The first empirical study investigate whether (1) a latent construct of EF, measured by separate assessments of working memory, shifting, and inhibition, makes unique direct contribution to the prediction of RC and (2) whether EF’s latent construct mediates the prediction of RC through decoding and a latent construct of linguistic comprehension. The second empirical study investigated whether (1) a latent construct of EF, measured by separate assessments of working memory, shifting, and inhibition, makes unique direct contribution to the prediction of RC and (2) whether EF’s latent construct mediates the prediction of RC through decoding and a latent construct of linguistic comprehension. Both empirical studies examined this relationship in linguistically diverse learners (LDLs) as an understudied population to extend the current research base. Specifically, the sample included three groups of LDL students: (a) English Learners (ELs), or students who speak a language other than or in addition to English in the home and who are receiving school-based English language services because they have not passed an English language proficiency exam, (b) R-ELs, or students who speak a language other than or in addition to English in the home but have passed an English language proficiency exam and have thus been recently exited from EL services, and (c) EL students from the above cohorts who the school identified as having a disability. Language and disability status, respectively, were entered as moderators in the above models to test for significant differences by group. Limitations of the dissertation study and directions for future research are discussed.Item Reading Comprehension and its Assessment : Aligning Operationalization with Conceptualization of the Construct(2012) Rahman, Taslima; Alexander, Patricia A.; Human Development; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The current study explored ways to improve reading comprehension assessments. Available assessments appeared misaligned with views of comprehension that are emerging in the reading research literature. Further, the measurement models as currently applied to comprehension assessment do not take into account the cognitive perspective of the construct when estimating proficiency. It has been argued that an assessment, an evidentiary argument, when based on a theory of the construct can offer more informative estimates of proficiency and improve validity of the inferences drawn from those estimates (Mislevy, Steinberg, & Almond, 2003). For this study, the design and the analytic approach for an assessment of comprehension were grounded on a premise that comprehension is influenced by task attributes (e.g., text type or target mental representation) as well as reader attributes (e.g., prior knowledge or interest). Construction of the comprehension measure and the ensuing psychometric analyses were framed following Kintsch's (1998) Construction-Integration model and Alexander's (1997) Model of Domain Learning. The resulting measure was administered to 160 eighth-grade students with no known status of receiving services for special education. In completing the comprehension task, the students read four text passages and answered a set of text passage-related questions, eight per passage. Those passages varied by text type and text topic, and questions varied by the target mental representations of a text and relations among the events of a situation described in the text. In addition, participants answered a set of questions for self-reporting about their familiarity with and interest in the topic of a text passage that they had read. In synthesizing the data, a particular form of the Linear Logistic Test Model introduced by Fischer (1973) was applied within a Bayesian framework. When the attributes were incorporated in the measurement model, the comprehension proficiency estimates changed in a way that reflected positive effects of topic familiarity and topic interest. Further, the task and reader attributes considered in the study contributed to estimates of item difficulties. Thus, the study, based on empirical evidence, suggests that developing a comprehension assessment more aligned with views of the construct offered in the literature is indeed viable.Item THE ROLE OF READING COMPREHENSION IN LARGE-SCALE SUBJECT-MATTER ASSESSMENTS(2013) Zhang, Ting; Torney-Purta, Judith; Human Development; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This study was designed with the overall goal of understanding how difficulties in reading comprehension are associated with early adolescents' performance in large-scale assessments in subject domains including science and civic-related social studies. The current study extended previous research by taking a cognition-centered approach based on the Evidence-Centered Design (ECD) framework and by using U.S. data from four large-scale subject-matter assessments: the IEA TIMSS Science Study of 1999, IEA CIVED Civic Education Study of 1999, and the 1970s IEA Six Subject surveys in Science, and in Civic Education. Using multiple-choice items from the TIMSS science and CIVED tests, the study identified a list of linguistic features that contribute to item difficulty of subject-matter assessments through the Coh-Metrix software, human rating, and multiple regression analysis. These linguistic features include word length, word frequency, word abstractness, intentional verbs, negative expressions, and logical connectives. They pertain to different levels of Kintsch's reading comprehension model: surface level, textbase level, and situation model. Integrating this item-level information into multiple regression analysis and Multidimensional IRT modeling, the study provided feasible methods (1) to estimate reading demand of test items in each subject-matter assessment, and (2) to partial out variance related to high level of reading demand of some test items and independent of the domain proficiencies that the subject-matter assessment was intended to measure. Overall, results suggested that reading demands of all test items in TIMSS Science and CIVED tests were within the reading capabilities of almost all of the students, and these two tests were not saturated with high reading demand. In addition, multiple regression results from the earlier Six Subject Surveys showed that an independent measure of students' general vocabulary was highly correlated with their achievement in the domains of science and civic-related social studies. On average, boys outperformed girls in both subject domains, and students from home with ample literacy resources outperformed students from homes of few literacy resources. In the science assessment, interactions were found between gender and word knowledge, home literacy resources and word knowledge, meaning the correlation between vocabulary and science performances differed by gender and home background.Item THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN TEACHER VARIABLES AND OUTCOMES FOR LANGUAGE MINORITY LEARNERS IN GRADES 3-5 ON MEASURES OF VOCABULARY KNOWLEDGE AND READING COMPREHENSION(2012) Gray, Jennifer Letcher; Dreher, Mariam J; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Researchers have examined the relationships between teachers' preparation, educational attainment, and teaching experience and the overall academic achievement of their students. However, little attention has been given to the relationships between these variables and the achievement of language minority learners (LMLs) in mainstream classrooms. Likewise, though researchers have measured teachers' beliefs and attitudes related to the inclusion and instruction of LML students, researchers have yet to address how these teachers' beliefs and attitudes might relate to LML students' academic achievement. This study was designed to examine relationships between teachers' preparation, teaching experience, educational attainment, and beliefs and attitudes and the achievement of LMLs in the areas of vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension. Participants in the study were LML students in grades 3-5 (n=173) and mainstream classroom teachers (n=51) from three schools from in the Mid-Atlantic region and three schools from the Northeastern region of the United States. Students were assessed at the beginning and end of the 2010-2011 school year using the Passage Comprehension and Vocabulary subtests of the Woodcock-Muñoz Language Survey-Revised (Woodcock et al., 2005). In the spring of 2011, teachers were asked to complete a survey designed to collect information related to their backgrounds, beliefs, and attitudes. I used ordinary least squares regression with robust standard errors to explore relationships between students' outcomes and teachers' backgrounds, beliefs, and attitudes. The results indicated that teachers' level of teaching experience was significantly and positively related to their LML students' achievement in vocabulary knowledge. I found that teachers' level of preparation for working with LML students and their attitudes toward the inclusion of LML students in their classrooms were significantly and positively related to their LML students' achievement in reading comprehension. I also found a significant, negative relationship between teachers' beliefs about school support and their LML students' outcomes on the measure of vocabulary knowledge. These findings suggest that teachers' backgrounds, beliefs, and attitudes related to the inclusion and instruction of LML students may in fact influence their LML students' academic achievement. Additionally, these findings provide insight into the complex relationships between mainstream classroom teachers, LML students, and students' academic outcomes.Item AN ANALYSIS OF THE QUALITY AND QUANTITY OF PARENT/CHILD READING UTTERANCES WHILE READING DIFFERENT GENRES(2010) Becker, Cynthia Ann; Slater, Wayne H.; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)The purpose of this study was to investigate how different genres affect the quality and quantity of parent/child reading utterances. I analyzed the reading utterances of parent/child dyads with preschool aged child while reading informational and narrative books contributing to this line of research by systematically selecting books based on scholarly criteria to minimize variability within and between genres. I invited families whose children attended preschool at a private school to participate in this study. On a weekly basis, over a six week period, participating families selected an informational book and a narrative book to be read. Each newly selected book was read at least once during that week. Each reading was audio-taped and tapes were transcribed, coded, and analyzed. Results indicate that genre affects both the quality and quantity of parents' and children's reading utterances. Both parents and children generated more total utterances and comprehension related utterances when reading informational books than when reading narrative books. Two parents demonstrated a marked increase in their use of comprehension related utterances while reading informational books than when reading narrative books. Four of the six children demonstrated a marked increase in their use of comprehension related utterances while being read informational books compared to narrative books. I then conducted a more fine-grained analysis to examine the parents' and children's reading utterances while reading specific informational books and specific narrative books. Regardless of genre, the type of book being read affected the number of utterances generated by the parents and children differently. The children demonstrated a preference for narrative books over informational books. Finally, I found that three themes, supported with vignettes, emerged from the data: Lost Opportunities, Grasped Opportunities, and Influences on Reading Behaviors. All three emergent themes addressed parent/child interactions and the affect they had on the reading sessions.