THE INFLUENCE OF DIFFERENTIAL PRE-READING INSTRUCTIONS ON CONSTRUCTING DIFFERENT DIMENSIONS OF SITUATIONAL REPRESENTATIONS AND PROBLEM-SOLVING IN FL NARRATIVE TEXT COMPREHENSION

Abstract

This article reports two experiments that address effects of differential pre-reading instructions: 1) IP (instruction to monitor procedural representations) and IN (no instruction); and 2) IS (instruction to monitor spatial representations) and IN, on subsequent situational representations construction and problem-solving in FL narrative text comprehension. While the structure of IP was consistent with the text, the structure of IS was not. The results from Experiment 1 suggest that IP helps readers with low FL proficiency to construct situational representations, but is of little help to solve an inference problem. In addition, readers with low proficiency are hindered from comprehending a text by IS. Experiment 2 suggests that for readers with higher (high-intermediate) FL proficiency, IP had little effect on constructing situational representations and had a negative effect on solving an inference problem. IS, on the other hand, enhances these readers' construction of situational representations and helps their problem-solving. Thus, language proficiency mediates the effects of prereading instructions on the subsequent text comprehension.