Theses and Dissertations from UMD

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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 give thesis/dissertation in DRUM

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    Reading Analyses with Chilean Children
    (2021) Cubillos Guzman, Montserrat; Turner, Jennifer; Galindo, Claudia; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    Chilean data show that a large reading-proficiency gap exists between students with high and low socioeconomic status (SES), that most children do not see themselves as readers, and that half of adolescents read below grade level (Agencia de Calidad de la Educación, 2019; Consejo Nacional de la Cultura y las Artes, 2014). To understand the reasons behind these phenomena, I conducted three complementary studies on reading comprehension, motivation, and literacy-related home practices with over 800,000 Chilean students, using nation-wide secondary data analysis.In the first study, I examined the association between the frequency of early literacy parent-children interactions (e.g., reading together, reading labels and signs, singing songs, etc.) before they entered first grade and students’ reading scores in fourth grade, while accounting for their second-grade proficiency. I observed that parents frequently engaged in literacy interactions with their children, that those interactions significantly predicted students’ later reading proficiency, and that the effect was steeper for families with high SES than for those with low SES. In the second study, I explored the association between parents’ reading motivation and frequency and their children’s. I examined data of students from sixth, eight, and tenth grade. I found that adolescents were more likely to be motivated and frequent readers if their parents were also keen readers. I also found that SES was a powerful predictor of the likelihood of being a keen reader, and that the effect of having a keen-reading parent was more positively pronounced for adolescents with low SES than for those with high SES. In the third study, I explored whether tenth graders’ reading motivation and frequency was associated to their reading scores. I observed that a large percentage of students who were proficient readers in fourth grade failed to achieve proficiency in tenth grade and that the odds of achieving proficiency in tenth grade increased when students were motivated and frequent readers. Furthermore, students’ odds of being proficient readers increased when their classmates reported high levels of reading motivation and frequency of reading. I discuss the implications of this and my other two studies.
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    EIGHTH-GRADERS’ READING COMPREHENSION OF INFORMATIONAL TEXTS AND LITERARY TEXTS IN THE 2009 NATIONAL ASSESSMENT OF EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS
    (2016) YOU, WEI; Afflerbach, Peter; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    National assessment results tell us that a large majority of American middle school students are not proficient readers. These assessment results indicate a dire situation. However, historically literacy research targeting this population is understudied. While we still do not have a complete picture of the situation, we do understand some aspects of it. The current literature has identified student and school characteristics that may explain why American middle school students are having literacy problems. In this study I analyzed the 2009 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reading assessment with a particular focus on eighth graders, looking into both student and school characteristics. The goal of this study was to examine how these student and school characteristics were associated with eighth-grader’s reading comprehension of literary and informational texts. In particular, I explored student and school characteristics that contributed to the White-Black achievement gap and the White-Hispanic achievement gap. The student participants for the 2009 NAEP reading assessment contained a nationally representative sample of 160,900 eighth graders from 7030 schools. Responses to the 2009 NAEP student questionnaire and school questionnaire were analyzed to address my research questions. I used the hierarchical linear modeling approach (HLM) to model the nested data structure (students nested within schools) in NAEP assessment. At the first level, I examined the associations between student characteristics and reading comprehension of informational and literary texts. At the second level, I investigated the associations between school characteristics and reading comprehension of informational and literary texts. One important finding in this study was that after controlling student characteristics (e.g., gender, eligibility for the National School Lunch Program, home literacy resources, school reading amount, reading motivation), the White-Black achievement gap in literary and informational texts disappeared in the within-school model. In the present study the low family income and lack of literacy resources at home contributed to the White-Black achievement gap. This study showed that eighth-grade Black students were especially disadvantaged in terms of family income. In addition to family income, the present study indicated that Black students had significantly lower access to home literacy resources, such as newspapers, magazines, encyclopedias, and books, compared with White peers. Taken together, the low family income and lack of literacy resources at home contributed to the White-Black achievement gap. In addition to these student characteristics, this study also demonstrated that school type was significantly associated with the White-Black achievement gap. More specifically, in public schools Black students scored significantly lower in both informational and literary texts, compared to White students. In private schools, however, no significant difference was observed between White and Black students in literary or informational texts. In other words, Black students performed equally well as White students in private school settings. Another important finding was the performance of Hispanic students. More specifically, Hispanic students scored significantly higher than White students in both informational and literary texts, after controlling all the student variables in the model. The results of the present study indicated that a disproportionately high percentage of Hispanic students were disadvantaged in both family income and parental education, which contributed to the White-Hispanic achievement gap. This finding is consistent with the White-Hispanic achievement gap literature that demonstrates that Hispanic students are more likely to come from low-income families, compared with White students. In addition to socioeconomic status, this study also pinpointed other key student characteristics contributing to the White-Hispanic achievement gap, including home literacy resources, reading amount in school, and reading motivation. The results of the present study indicated that Hispanic students had significantly lower access to home literacy resources, were engaged in significantly less reading in school, and displayed significantly lower reading motivation, compared with their White peers. Thus, a plausible explanation for the White-Hispanic achievement gap among adolescent readers can be reasonably attributed to the differences between Hispanic and White students in these key variables. Above and beyond student characteristics, this study also indicated that school type was significantly associated with the White-Hispanic achievement gap. More specifically, in private schools Hispanic students outperformed White students in both informational and literary texts. However, in public schools Hispanic students scored significantly lower in both informational and literary texts compared to White students. Taken together, these findings indicate the complexity of reading development among Black students and Hispanic students. Both student characteristics and school characteristics contributed to the White-Black achievement gap and the White-Hispanic achievement gap.
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    READING COMPREHENSION STRATEGY INSTRUCTION IN UPPER-ELEMENTARY CLASSROOMS WITH ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS: A STUDY OF PRACTICES AND OUTCOMES
    (2015) Doyle, Candice Briece; Silverman, Rebecca D; Special Education; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    The goal of this study was to investigate the relationship between reading comprehension strategy instruction (explicit or skills-based) in general education settings and third through fifth grade students' reading comprehension outcomes. In addition, I was interested in whether relationships between instruction and outcomes differed for students from English only (EO) and English language learner (ELL) backgrounds. To address these goals I conducted a secondary data analysis of 59 Reading/Language Arts classroom observation transcripts. These represented observations of 19 teachers at three time points (fall, winter, spring). I analyzed transcripts by employing an iterative coding process including open, axial, and selective coding (Strauss & Corbin, 1990). I coded teacher talk at the utterance (Crookes, 1990) level for either explicit instruction (instruction that included all of the following: introduction, modeling, collaborative practice, guided practice, independent practice) or skills-based practice (teacher practice in which students were asked to apply a comprehension strategy absent of instruction of how to do so). In addition I coded for separate parts of the explicit instruction model (introduction, modeling, collaborative practice, guided practice, independent practice). Then, I quantitized (Tashakori & Tedlie, 1998) the instructional code data into average frequency counts across observations in order to conduct multiple regression analyses with student reading comprehension outcome measures. I found no statistically significant results related to the explicit instruction model (as a whole), or skills-based practice and students' outcomes. However, when analyzing separate parts of explicit instruction, results suggested that more guided practice was associated with higher scores on one outcome measure. In exploring interactions between language background and instructional codes, I found no differences in relationships between instructional codes and reading comprehension for EOs versus ELLs.
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    A MULTI-METHOD DESIGN TO INVESTIGATE THE ROLES OF READING STRATEGY USE AND READING INTEREST IN COMPREHENSION OF ENGLISH EXPOSITORY TEXTS FOR EIGHTH GRADERS IN THE EFL CONTEXT
    (2011) Lin, Chien-Yu; Afflerbach, Peter; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    This study aimed to address three research gaps revealed in previous studies on L2 reading comprehension and L2 reading strategy use: (a) a restricted use of methodology in assessing L2 reading strategies, (b) inadequate attention to the role of reading interest in L2 reading comprehension, and (c) a lack of comprehensive understanding about the relationships between reading strategy use and reading interest in L2 reading. A multi-method design was adapted to assess L2 reading strategy use and L2 reading interest. The assessment methods for strategy use included think-aloud protocols and a L2 reading strategy questionnaire, the Cognitive-Metacognitive Strategy Questionnaire. To quantify the data from the think-aloud protocols, three scoring procedures were developed based on the frequency counts of the strategy coding system: (1) Quantity of Total Strategy Use, (2) Quality of Total Strategy Use and (3) Sophistication of Strategy Use. In addition, the readers' reading interest was measured by semi-structural interviews and two interest scales: the Situational Interest Questionnaire and the Interest Experience Scale. Based on the multiple assessments with 36 participants, the study examined (1) the specific L2 reading strategies employed by eighth graders in Taiwan and how the results from different strategy assessments corresponded to each other, (2) the sources for L2 reading interest for the eighth graders, and (3) how L2 reading strategy use and reading interest interacted with each other to influence L2 reading comprehension. The results indicated that the L2 readers utilized three clusters of reading strategies during comprehension: (1) textbase comprehension strategies, such as translation and paraphrasing, (2) situation model construction strategies, such as elaboration, summarization and drawing inferences, and (3) metacognitive monitoring strategies. The study also found that the measure, Sophistication of Strategy Use, had the most satisfactory validity among the strategy measures. The degree of sophistication in strategy use was more associated with the readers' text recalls than the quantity of total strategy use, indicating how the readers intentionally and carefully processed each strategy played a significant role to improve reading comprehension. Moreover, the study found several content characteristics which had positive influences on L2 readers' interest in the text; they were relevance, importance, novelty and familiarity of the ideas contained in the text. Furthermore, the case analyses on three readers' profiles showed that reading interest was closely related to the depth of the readers' strategic engagement. The less proficient L2 reader, Alice, possessed high reading interest and demonstrated an attempt to employ more higher-order, situation model construction strategies during reading. By contrast, the proficient L2 reader, Stella, did not intend to comprehend the text in depth and utilized the strategies at the superficial level due to low reading interest. These findings presented a dynamic picture of the intertwined relationship between strategy use and reading interest in L2 reading comprehension.
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    Effectiveness of false correction strategy on science reading comprehension
    (2008-05-01) Ghent, Cynthia; Holliday, William G; Curriculum and Instruction; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)
    False-correction reading strategy theoretically prompted college students to activate their prior knowledge when provided false statements linked to a portion of their biology textbook. This strategy is based in elaborative interrogation theory, which suggests that prompting readers to answer interrogatives about text students are reading increases their comprehension of that text. These interrogatives always asked "why" statements pulled from a text, one sentence in length, were "true." True statements in this study based on a text were converted by the experimenter into false statements, one sentence in length. Students were requested to rewrite each statement (n=12) on average every 200 words in a text as they were reading, converting each false statement into a true statement. These students outperformed other students requested to reread the same biology text twice (an established placebo-control strategy). These students, in turn, outperformed still other students reading an unrelated control text taken from the same textbook used only to establish a prior knowledge baseline for all students included in this study. Students participating in this study were enrolled students in an undergraduate introductory general biology course designed for non-majors. A three-group, posttest-only, randomized experimental control-group design was used to prevent pretest activation of students' prior knowledge thus increasing chances of producing evidence of false-correction effectiveness and to begin augmenting potential generalizability to science classrooms. Students' (n=357) general biology knowledge, verbal ability, and attempts to use the false correction strategy were collected and analyzed. Eight of the participants were interviewed by the researcher in a first attempt in this domain to collect data on participants' points of view about the strategy. The results of this study are not yet recommended for use in authentic school settings as further research is indicated.
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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.