Performance on Reading Comprehension Assessments and College Achievement: A Meta-Analysis

ABSTRACT

Reading comprehension assessments are used for postsecondary course placement and advising, and they are components of college entrance exams. Therefore, a quantitative understanding of the relationship between reading comprehension assessments and postsecondary academic achievement is needed. To address this need, we conducted a meta-analysis to examine how well performance on college reading assessments (e.g., ACT, COMPASS, Nelson-Denny, SAT) correlated with academic achievement (GPA and college grades). Additionally, to help explain the variation in previous findings, we examined whether the type of reading assessment used, performance indicator, publication bias, or year of publication served as moderators. Results based on 26 studies and a total of 25,090 students revealed a small association between performance on reading comprehension assessments and college grades (r = .29, SE = .02, 95% CI [.25, .33], p < .001), with no variation based on study moderators. These findings highlight the importance of college students’ reading comprehension skills for college academic achievement.

KEYWORDS:

• College students
• meta-analysis
• reading comprehension

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, through Grant Institute for Education Sciences (IES) R305A180417 to California State University, Chico. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent views of the Institute or the U.S. Department of Education

Notes on contributors

Virginia Clinton-Lisell

Virginia Clinton-Lisell, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in Educational Foundations and Research at the University of North Dakota. She holds a masters’ degree in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages from New York University and a doctorate in Educational Psychology from the University of Minnesota. Dr. Clinton-Lisell’s research focuses on the psychology of language, open educational resources, and student attitudes toward active learning. She is the editor of Active Learning in Higher Education.

Terrill Taylor

Terrill Taylor is a doctoral candidate in the Counseling Psychology program at the University of North Dakota. He received his BS in Human Development and Family Studies from the University of Houston and a MA in Counseling from the University of North Dakota. His research in psychology largely focuses on issues of social justice, multiculturalism, and equity in higher education.

Sarah E. Carlson

Sarah E. Carlson, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Educational Psychology in the Department of Learning Sciences at Georgia State University. Her research primarily focuses on understanding human learning through assessing readers’ cognitive processes of comprehension. This work has been and is currently supported through IES Measurement grants for children and adult readers. She also studies the cognitive processes of learning through understanding how adolescent readers and understand science texts, and how potential misconceptions block students from fully understanding the text.

Ben Seipel

Ben Seipel, PhD, is an associate professor in the School of Education at California State University, Chico. He earned his doctorate and master’s degrees from the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis in Educational Psychology. Dr. Seipel’s research focuses on assessing the cognitive processes involved in reading comprehension, teacher education, and online teaching and learning.