Comparing Hungarian Students’ Reading Development in Continuous and Noncontinuous Text Types

• In Event: International Perspectives on Assessment in the Schools

Abstract

Reading is an interactive process in which text features play just as an important role as readers’ cognitive and metacognitive skills. Results of large-scale assessment programs imply that Hungarian students perform poorer when understanding non-continuous texts than continuous texts. This urged us to examine students’ reading development on continuous and non-continuous texts and identify the factors hindering development within the first Hungarian longitudinal program. In line with previous research results we found that students’ performance is significantly worse when understanding non-continuous texts and text-typology significantly affects students’ test scores. The picture is more complex if we further analyze the non-continuous texts on the basis of cohesive devices. Data show that text-structures lacking cohesive elements are significantly more difficult to understand.

Authors

• Agnes Hodi, University of Szeged

• Edit Tóth, Hungarian Academy of Sciences

• Eva D. Molnar, University of Szeged