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Questioning-the-author: Primary school students' perceptions
Citation
Foong, P. Y., Png, J. L. H., Rasidir, R. A., & Silver, R. (2009, November). Questioning-the-author: Primary school students' perceptions. Paper presented at the ERAS Conference, Singapore.
Abstract
A small-scale study of reading comprehension in Primary 4 was undertaken. One aspect of the study
was to introduce “Questioning-the-Author” (QtA) technique (Beck & McKeown, 2002) as part of
reading comprehension lessons. Subsequently students answered comprehension questions which
included ‘traditional’ reading comprehension questions (literal, inferential and applicative, following
Ruddell, 1999) and QtA-type question (e.g. “What do you think the author wants you to
understand?”). In addition to checking student comprehension via the lesson worksheets, we also
administered a survey to gather information on student perceptions of item difficulty and interest level.
In other words, which types of questions were perceived to be more difficult? Which questions were
considered to be more interesting? This paper focuses on student perceptions of the different question
types. We will also consider whether students’ perceptions of difficulty/interest matched accuracy of
student responses.
Date Issued
November 2009
Description
This paper was presented at the ERAS Conference, held in Singapore from 19 – 20 Nov 2009