Comprehension monitoring strategies for the detection of contradictions in Science texts

Abstract

In this work we analyze how three groups of students, of different ages and educational levels, evaluate and regulate their comprehension when reading texts of Physics that present some difficulties. The investigation was carried out by including in a written test, two texts with different kinds of problems: contradictions between the information of the text and the students’ previous knowledge and contradictions that affect internal consistency. We have proved that, in many cases, students’ explicit evaluation of their own comprehension of a text is not a good indicator of the true level of comprehension reached. We can affirm that, although the readers’ abilities to evaluate and to regulate their comprehension improves with age, the results obtained are not satisfactory.