Evaluación de la comprensión a través de la formulación de preguntas por los estudiantes a partir de la lectura de un texto de física

Abstract

This work presents the results of a research, within the framework of the study of reading comprehension of texts of Physics, with the aim of determining the level of comprehension reached by students when they read a school text, by studying the questions they ask. We analyze and classify the questions that show no comprehension on different levels of the text representation in memory, distinguishing between those referred strictly to the text and those generated when students relate the explicit knowledge conveyed in the text with their own knowledge. This methodology has allowed us to examine the questions from two aspects: (1) by using a model of question asking, we predict some questions, specially those which correspond to the surface level and the text base and to the transition between this last level and the situation model; (2) by considering the questions generated when building situation models, we use a taxonomy to classify them according to the relation established between the information in the text and their previous knowledge. The results of our research are related, firstly, with the prediction of one third of the questions asked by the students, from the model of question asking. Secondly, we have been able to determine some characteristics of the remaining questions of the sample, particularly, those which are more difficult to predict, which involve the students' previous knowledge. Finally, the questions which constitute the sample show that many of the students have been able to reach a level of comprehension over the text base, trying to build the situation model, by asking questions, particularly, about characteristics of objects, processes and causal relations.