Comprehension Monitoring and the Error Detection Paradigm

The purpose of this study was to examine the conditions which were likely to facilitate error detection. It was hypothesized that poor readers' comprehension monitoring abilities would improve if they were given assistance in selecting the appropriate schema for understanding a passage. In order to test the hypothesis, we used a standard paradigm: the error detection task. No evidence was found to support the notion that schema activation would significantly improve poor readers' error detection abilities. However, results did indicate that, while good readers were significantly better at this task than were poor readers, a surprising number of children failed to report some very blatant errors. Although these results are in agreement with earlier studies using the same task, we felt uneasy in drawing the conclusion that sixth graders are lacking in metacognitive abilities. Instead, we have expanded the discussion to include our thoughts on the limitations and difficulties in the use of the error detection paradigm itself. Five major concerns were identified and suggestions for improving future comprehension monitoring studies were made. Some alternative methodologies were also considered.