Beliefs about learning and constructive strategies in text comprehension

Abstract

This study investigated the roles of epistemological beliefs and constructive strategies in text comprehension among elementary-school children in Hong Kong. Specifically, three questions were addressed: (a) What characterized children s beliefs and did they vary with age, gender, and ability? (b) What strategies did children use when they learned from text and did these strategies vary with age, gender, and ability? And (c) Did beliefs contribute to text comprehension over and above the effects of age, ability, and strategy use? Eighty-two children, 40 grade-five and 42 grade-six, participated in the study. They were interviewed on their beliefs about learning and asked to think aloud to a scientific text passage. Several tasks including recall, summary, new learning, and questions were administered to assess their text comprehension. Qualitative analyses showed different beliefs ranging from reproductive to constructivist beliefs, and surface to deep text-processing strategies were identified. Quantitative analyses indicated that high achievers more often held constructivist beliefs and used deeper constructive strategies. Gender and age effects were not significant. Regression analyses indicated that constructivist beliefs contributed to text comprehension over and above the effects of age, achievement scores, and strategy use. Implications of examining children s beliefs about learning in strategy instruction are discussed.