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Raven Hill | Becoming Knowledgeable About Wine and Plants: Measuring Readers’ Ability to Infer a Main Idea
The ability to draw generalized inferences is an important component of how readers conceptualize a text. Additionally, a variable such as instructional reading goal (i.e., study vs. entertainment) may change how readers are able to comprehend a text. The purpose of this pilot study will verify two created expository texts and determine whether the assigned reading goal changes readers’ ability to make generalized inferences. This experimental research design of N=280 in the Ball State Psychological Sciences subject pool will be given two expository texts that have been created to successfully let readers draw generalized inferences. Additionally, each participant will read each text with a randomly assigned reader goal (either study or entertainment). It is hypothesized that participants will be able to draw the intended generalization inference 75% of the time for each paragraph of each text. It is also hypothesized that the study goal will predict a higher amount of generalization inferences compared to the entertainment goal.
Faculty Mentors: Dr. Kristin Ritchey and Dr. Thomas Holtgraves
Psychological Science
Graduate