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A Critique of Research Methods in the Study of Reading Comprehension
Author(s) -
Hewitt Graham
Publication year - 1982
Publication title -
british educational research journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.171
H-Index - 89
eISSN - 1469-3518
pISSN - 0141-1926
DOI - 10.1080/0141192820080102
Subject(s) - reading comprehension , comprehension , naturalistic observation , reading (process) , psychology , naturalism , cognition , observational methods in psychology , educational research , interpretation (philosophy) , cognitive psychology , mathematics education , epistemology , observational study , computer science , linguistics , social psychology , philosophy , neuroscience , programming language , medicine , pathology
Much research on reading comprehension has used an inappropriate methodology and the interpretation of results has often been based on the erroneous use of statistics. Two major approaches to the study of reading comprehension are distinguished, the psychometric and the cognitive, and representative studies are briefly described. It is argued that these two approaches suffer from fundamental methodological weaknesses, principally in the areas of measurement, theory and generalisation, which limit the scientific worth of their findings. Research on reading comprehension needs to develop alternative methodologies which have a more qualitative orientation. This would involve a reconceptualisation of reading comprehension and what counts as valid data. Such a methodology would be based on fieldwork in naturalistic settings, using naturalistic texts and tasks and would make use of observational techniques. Thus researchers could attempt to answer both the traditional questions and those not previously asked.