Hierarchy Rating as a Measure of Text Macroprocessing: relationship with working memory and school achievement

Abstract

A novel reading comprehension measure, a hierarchy‐rating test, was developed. It was targeted to probe the macrostructure of the mental representation of expository texts. It did not include reproduction of the text, even though sensitivity to the importance of different text segments was required. The hierarchy‐rating test was observed to be a reliable and valid measure for expository text comprehension. A total of 64 Form 7 pupils (12‐13‐year‐old) performed the hierarchy‐rating test and, for comparison, a multiple‐choice reading comprehension task. Working memory (WM) capacity was measured using an operation‐word span task. Evaluations given by teachers in four school subjects were obtained from school reports. Performance on the hierarchy‐rating test correlated significantly with WM (r= 0.39‐0.44). This finding is in agreement with a number of earlier studies. Both the hierarchy‐rating and multiple‐choice task were very strongly (up to r= 0.7) related to school achievement.