Procedural text: Predictions of importance ratings and recall by models of reading comprehension

Abstract

Two models of text comprehension, a referential model proposed by Kintsch and van Dijk (1978) and a causal model proposed by Trabasso and Sperry (1985), were tested in two experiments with eight procedural texts. In Experiment 1, 24 female college students rated the importance of propositions, idea units, and sentences to the overall procedure described in the texts on a 7‐point scale. In Experiment 2, 16 female college students recalled each of the eight texts immediately after reading it. Predictors derived from the models were used to predict the ratings and the recall in multiple regression analyses. The results showed that the amount of variance accounted for by the predictors varied from text to text. For the ratings, the causal model accounted for significantly more variance than the referential model. For the recall, the causal model generally accounted for more variance but the difference was not significant. For the referential model, level within the hierarchy accounted for the most variance and for the causal model, the causal chain variable accounted for the most variance. The models were not as powerful as in previous research with narrative texts, perhaps because these models do not take into account the cognitive representation involved in doing the task described by a procedural text.