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.

More information is available at Theses and Dissertations at University of Maryland Libraries.

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    Black-White Differences in Reading Comprehension: The Measure Matters
    (2005-12-05) Sipe, Mina; Hanges, Paul J.; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Traditional reading comprehension tests have shown sizable Black-White mean subgroup differences. In this paper, I argue that part of the reason for this phenomenon lies in the atheoretical nature of existing tests and that the SIENA Reading Component Process Test© (RCPT), a new, theory-driven measure the cognitive components of reading comprehension shows reduced subgroup differences while still exhibiting a substantial relationship with a traditional reading comprehension test. Furthermore, I hypothesize that subcomponents of the SIENA RCPT© that rely on prior knowledge show greater subgroup differences than those subcomponents that do not require access to prior knowledge. Consistent with my hypothesis, the new SIENA RCPT© overall shows reduced subgroup differences compared to a traditional reading comprehension measure and evidence for convergent validity for the SIENA RCPT© is also found. Contrary to my hypothesis, the subcomponents of the SIENA RCPT© that rely on prior knowledge show less subgroup differences than those subcomponents that do not require access to prior knowledge.