The Effects of a Web-Based Vocabulary Development Tool on Student Reading Comprehension of Science Texts

摘要

The complexities of reading comprehension have received increasing recognition in?recent years. In this realm, the power of vocabulary in predicting cognitive challenges in?phonological, orthographic, and semantic processes is well documented. In this study,?we present a web-based vocabulary development tool that has a series of interactive?displays, including a list of the 50 most frequent words in a particular text, Google?image and video results for any combination of those words, definitions, and synonyms?for particular words from the text, and a list of sentences from the text in which?particular words appear. Additionally, we report the results of an experiment that was?performed working collaboratively with middle school science teachers from a large?urban district in the United States. While this experiment did not show a significant?positive effect of this tool on reading comprehension in science, we did find that girls?seem to score worse on a reading comprehension assessment after using our web-based?tool. This result could reflect prior research that suggests that some girls tend to have a?negative attitude towards technology due to gender stereotypes that give girls the?impression that they are not as good as boys in working with computers.