Exploring reading comprehension skill relationships through the G-DINA model

Abstract

© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. By analysing the test data of 1029 British secondary school students’ performance on 20 Programme for International Student Assessment English reading items through the generalised deterministic input, noisy ‘and’ gate (G-DINA) model, the study conducted two investigations on exploring the relationships among the five reading comprehension skills defined by six English language experts. Skill groups, skill types and conflicting relationship were discovered in the investigation about the relationship among reading comprehension skills as part of the cognitive structure of the examinees, which provided insights into the sequence of reading skill training. The investigation about the relationship among reading comprehension skills in the problem-solving process, conducted at the item level, conceptualised skill relationship patterns as strategies for solving items. The study also demonstrated that saturated G-DINA model catered to the characteristics of reading comprehension skills and could be applied to tests involving highly interactive and hierarchical skills.