Measuring the Behavior of Reading Comprehension Test Takers: What Do They Do, and Should They Do It?

The authors sought to further the understanding of reading processes and their links to comprehension using two reading tasks for elementary-grade students. One hundred sixty-six students in grades 2-5 were randomly assigned to one of two conditions: reading with questions presented concurrently with text or reading with questions presented after reading the text (with the text unavailable when answering questions). Eye movement data suggested different processes for each task: Rereading occurred and more time was spent on higher level processing measures in the with-text condition, and in particular, those who did not reread had more accurate answers than those who engaged in rereading. Measurement of students' precision in returning directly to the portion of the passage with information corresponding to a question also predicted students' response accuracy.