Comprehension Effects of Connectives Across Texts, Readers, and Coherence Relations

Figures & data

Table 1. Distribution of Participants over Grade and Education Level

	Education Level
Grade	Prevocational (Low)	Prevocational (Medium)	Prevocational (High)	General Education	Preuniversity	Total
Grade 8	24	72	175	54	45	370
Grade 9	34	50	96	63	71	314
Grade 10	-	-	-	75	35	110
Total	58	122	271	192	151	794

Table 2. Frequencies of Manipulated Coherence Relations per Coherence Type

Coherence Relation	Frequency
Causal	100
Contrast	42
Additive	42
Temporal	9
Total	193

Table 3. Descriptions of Factors

Factor	Description	Levels
Coherence marking	Text version: high or low coherence marking	2 levels
Education level	Level of education in which the student is enrolled	5 levels
Grade	Grade in which the student is enrolled	3 levels
Reading proficiency	Reading proficiency score on Dutch reading ability test (centered and standardized)	Continuous
Reading test	Reading test used to test reading ability	2 levels
Genre	Educational text or public information text	2 levels
Coherence type	Type of manipulated coherence relation	4 levels

Table 4. Mean Probability Correct per Text Version, Education Level, and Grade

		Coherence Marking
Education Level	Grade	Low-CM	High-CM
Prevocational (low)	Grade 8	30.04%	37.80%
	Grade 9	34.75%	33.86%
Prevocational (medium)	Grade 8	42.06%	40.40%
	Grade 9	48.39%	47.79%
Prevocational (high)	Grade 8	48.66%	48.60%
	Grade 9	53.40%	54.52%
General	Grade 8	55.43%	57.87%
	Grade 9	61.82%	61.26%
	Grade 10	63.96%	68.02%
Preuniversity	Grade 8	65.25%	67.24%
	Grade 9	69.66%	69.89%
	Grade 10	70.49%	72.67%

Table 5. Model Text Level Analysis (Including Nonsignificant Factor Coherence Marking)

	Estimates	SE	Z	p	Odds Ratio
Random effects
School	0.015	0.010	1.500	.067^a
School: student	0.212	0.013	16.308	<.001^a
Text	0.038	0.007	5.429	<.001^a
Fixed effects
Intercept	−0.409	0.125	−3.272	<.001	0.664
Coherence marking: High-CM	0^b
Coherence marking: Low-CM	−0.020	0.014	−1.429	.153	0.980
Education level: prevocational low	0^b
Education level: prevocational medium	0.324	0.093	3.484	<.001	1.383
Education level: prevocational high	0.578	0.093	6.215	<.001	1.782
Education level: general	0.801	0.112	7.152	<.001	2.228
Education level: preuniversity	0.864	0.125	6.912	<.001	2.373
Grade 8	0^b
Grade 9	0.109	0.045	2.422	.015	1.115
Grade 10^c	0.212	0.096	2.208	.027	1.236
Reading proficiency	0.308	0.029	10.621	<.001	1.361
Reading test: RSM14	0^b
Reading test: VVO	−0.535	0.091	−5.879	<.001	0.586
Genre: public information	0^b
Genre: educational textbook	0.343	0.026	13.192	<.001	1.409

^aOne-sided.

^bSet as reference level.

^cUnbalanced, no 10th grade prevocational students in the sample.

Table 6. Mean Probability Correct in Host Sentences per Text Version, Education Level, and Grade

		Coherence Marking
Education Level	Grade	Low-CM	High-CM
Prevocational (low)	Grade 8	28.49%	37.40%
	Grade 9	32.02%	32.45%
Prevocational (medium)	Grade 8	40.68%	39.44%
	Grade 9	45.83%	48.07%
Prevocational (high)	Grade 8	47.34%	48.12%
	Grade 9	51.35%	53.27%
General	Grade 8	53.56%	57.19%
	Grade 9	59.20%	59.90%
	Grade 10	63.05%	67.42%
Preuniversity	Grade 8	64.11%	67.96%
	Grade 9	69.03%	67.97%
	Grade 10	71.72%	71.52%

Table 7. Final Model Relation Level Analysis

	Estimates	SE	Z	p	Odds Ratio
Random effects
School	0.032	0.013	2.462	<.001^a
School: student	0.189	0.015	12.600	<.001^a
Sentence	0.039	0.007	5.571	<.001^a
Fixed effects
Intercept	−0.284	0.140	−2.029	.042	0.753
Coherence marking: High-CM	0^b
Coherence marking: Low-CM	−0.060	0.031	−1.935	.053	0.942
Coherence type: causal	0^b
Coherence type: contrastive	−0.249	0.038	−6.553	<.001	0.780
Coherence type: temporal	−0.224	0.078	−2.872	.004	0.799
Coherence type: additive	−0.022	0.040	−0.550	.582	0.978
Low-CM * contrast	−0.147	0.054	−2.722	.006	0.863
Low-CM * temporal	−0.018	0.110	−0.164	.870	0.982
Low-CM * additive	0.165	0.057	2.895	.004	1.179
Education level: prevocational low	0^b
Education level: prevocational medium	0.356	0.101	3.525	<.001	1.428
Education level: prevocational high	0.578	0.102	5.667	<.001	1.782
Education level: general	0.802	0.122	6.574	<.001	2.230
Education level: preuniversity	0.903	0.137	6.591	<.001	2.467
Grade 8	0^b
Grade 9	0.099	0.048	2.063	.039	1.104
Grade 10^c	0.183	0.105	1.743	.081	1.201
Reading proficiency	0.296	0.031	9.548	<.001	1.344
Reading test: RSM14	0^b
Reading test: VVO	−0.541	0.104	−5.202	<.001	0.582
Genre: public information	0^b
Genre: educational textbook	0.141	0.025	5.640	<.001	1.151

^aOne-sided.

^bSet as reference level.

^cUnbalanced, no 10th grade prevocational students in the sample.

Figure 1. Final model estimated interaction effect Coherence marking and Coherence type. Estimates are set on the reference levels for Education level, Grade, Reading proficiency, Reading test, and Genre (see Table 7).

Figure A1. Average number of connectives per text and text version. Calculated over the whole text, including connectives that were not manipulated.

Figure A2. Distribution of manipulated relations across texts per coherence type.