The Impact of Text Type and Difficulty on Metacomprehension among 10th Grade Students

Abstract

The current experimental study aimed at identifying the effect of text type (scientific or historical) and difficulty level (difficult or easy) and their interaction on student’s metacomprehension performance. A sample of 180 10th grade female students enrolled in public schools at Alrusiafah district participated in the study; and they were distributed equally on four groups ((1) easy historical text group, (2) difficult historical text group, (3) easy scientific text group and (4) difficult scientific text group). They completed a metacomprehension pretest, read the texts assigned to them (subjects were not familiar with the texts), and then completed the metacomprehension posttest. Metacomprehension test was adapted from Moore et al. (1997); Anderson (2005) and Schmitt (1990). It included (44) items distributed on (7) dimensions. Validity and reliability of the test were insured. Statistically significant differences were found in the metacomprehension posttest in favor of groups 3 and 4, and in favor of group 4 in overall posttest. Differences are found in the metacomprehension dimensions posttest in favor of groups 3 and 4, and in groups 2 and 4 performances in metacomprehension dimensions posttest.