Journal of Research in Reading, ISSN 0141-0423 Volume 21, Issue 3, 1998, pp 213227

Schema effects in EFL reading comprehension

Marsha Bensoussan
Department of Foreign Languages, University of Haifa, Israel

ABSTRACT
Schemata are known to play an important a role in reading comprehension. Comprehension is seen as the interaction between top-down processing from activated schemata and bottom-up processing from concepts expressed by the text. If readers activate an inappropriate schema, they may miss the meaning of the text. The present study examines the effects of faulty schemata on reading comprehension. At the end of an advanced English reading course at Haifa University, a test of reading comprehension was administered to 125 students. One section of the test contained an advanced level text about love and marriage, a text close to the personal experience of the examinees. Using dictionaries, students translated expressions and sentences and answered short-answer comprehension questions in English. Results indicated that 23% of the wrong answers to the comprehension questions were driven by schemata which differed substantially from the actual content of the text.

RESUME
Les effets des schemas dans la lecture pour comprehension des etudiants de l'anglais langue seconde mas jouent un ro hension de la On sait que les sche le important dans la compre ma inapproprie , ils ne peuvent pas saisir les lecture. Si les lecteurs activent un sche sente e examine les effets d'un processus errone sur la sens du texte. La recherche pre hension de la lecture et les re sultats aux tests. compre un test de compre hension de la lecture a 125 e tudiants, a la fin d'un On a adminstre de l'Universite de Ha fa. Une partie du test contenait un texte cours d'anglais avance relatif a l'amour et au mariage, texte proche de l'expe rience de niveau avance es. Les e tudiants ont traduit les expressions et les personnelle des personnes examine l'aide de dictionnaires et re pondu en anglais a des questions de phrases a hension courtes. compre
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sultats ont montre qu'un processus errone de haut en bas a constitue un Les re les re sultats au test car il est apparu que 23% des facteur significatif qui a affecte es de re ponse provenaient du fait que les e tudiants avaient un autre tenatives errone ma que celui du texte. sche les re sultats au test. Un processus errone de bas en D'autres conditions ont affecte s de lexique et de syntaxe des e tudiants. Les haut est apparu, provenant de difficulte tudiants ne re ussirent pas toujours a se servir efficacement de leur dictionnaire. e tudiants concernant le contenu du texte sont L'attitude et la motivation des e ussite au test. Quoique l'inte re apparus comme un facteur puissant affectant la re t de tudiant et son implication dans le texte ait e te un facteur positif, le surinvestissel'e tudiant peut conduire a faire baisser ses re sultats. De plus, la non ment de l'e avec le texte et son caracte re abstrait inhibent la compre hension. Ces familiarite facteurs peuvent se superposer. soriente certains Enfin, des questions qui ne sont pas centrales peuvent avoir de tudiants, rendant artificiels certains re sultats. e tudiants envers le La conclusion que l'on peut en tirer est que les attitudes des e termine les re sultats au test, contenu du texte peuvent e tre un facteur puissant qui de aussi important que la ma trise de la langue. Alors que de plus en plus de situations res linguistiques et culturelles, il est ne cessaire que les de test franchissent des frontie es auparavant quant a la nature recherches examinent les positions tacitement accepte me aussi `peu dangereux' que l'amour peut infle chir les re sultats a des tests. Si un the tudiants de haut niveau, alors d'autres the mes, plus un test, me me pour certain e miques, pourraient biaiser les re sultats de personnes teste es dont la vision du pole ponse au test. monde, differente de celle du redacteur du test, interfererait avec leur re cessaire que le constructeur du test prenne en conside ration ces facteurs, au Il est ne les d'un test de lecture. Le choix du texte influe moyen notamment de versions paralle e et son potentiel de compre hension, et au bout sur la motivation de la personne teste et la fide lite du test. du compte la validite

INTRODUCTION The role of schemata and context in comprehension Schemata are known to play an important a role in reading comprehension (Afflerbach, 1990a, 1990b; Anderson and Pearson, 1984; Carrell, 1987; Grabe, 1991; Fincher-Kiefer, 1992; Fincher-Kiefer, Post, Greene and Voss, 1988; Rumelhart, 1980; van Oostendorp,1991). Comprehension is seen as the interaction between topdown processing from activated schemata and bottom-up processing from concepts expressed by the sentence (Auble and Franks, 1983; Adams, 1980; Spiro , 1980; van Dijk, 1980; Kintsch and van Dijk, 1978). Macro-level textual components of reading include: content, register, level of difficulty, cultural background, and interest to the reader (Carrell, 1987; Floyd and Carrell, 1987; Grabe, 1991; Hidi, 1990; Pritchard, 1990; Sadoski, Goetz and Fritz, 1993; Steffensen, 1986; Steffensen, Joag-Dev and Anderson, 1979). In terms of the interactive approach to reading, comprehension is viewed as a combination of both lower-level rapid, automatic identification and higher-level comprehension / interpretation skills (Grabe, 1991). Moreover, the reader is also comparing the ideas in the text with his/her own schemata or concepts
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about life in the real world. The reader's background knowledge makes it possible to form models or schemata, which include both the knowledge itself and information about how this knowledge is to be used (Rumelhart, 1980; Carrell, 1985). Comprehension occurs when new information interacts with old knowledge (Anderson and Pearson, 1984; Smith, 1994). Readers compensate for a deficiency in one area of reading, e.g. word recognition, by relying on other knowledge sources, e.g. comprehension strategies or sensitivity to intraword structure (Stanovich, 1980). In a testing situation, questions can also be used as clues to guide students' schema activation (Cohen, 1980). Thus, even if they encounter difficult or ambiguous terms, readers predict the general meaning according to assumptions derived from their schema. However, if readers activate an inappropriate schema, they may miss the meaning of the text (Floyd and Carrell, 1987; Foley, 1992; Nelson, 1987; Oded and Stavans, 1994). Anderson and Pearson (1984) have identified three reading problems experienced by poor readers in the native language: a) Poor readers are likely to have gaps in knowledge. Since what a person already knows is a principal determiner of what s/he can comprehend, the less s/he knows, the less s/he can comprehend. b) Poor readers are likely to have an impoverished understanding of the relationships among the facts they know about a topic. Arbitrary information is a source of confusion, slow learning, slow processing and unsatisfactory reasoning. c) Poor readers are unlikely to make the inferences required to weave the information given in a text into a coherent overall representation. These observations concern reading in the native language (L1). The learner of a foreign language (L2) usually has two additional handicaps: lower language proficiency and different cultural backgrounds from those assumed in the text (e.g. ways of thinking, expectations about the ways language can be used, textual schemata). The present study examines the effects of faulty processing on reading comprehension and test scores. Text effects on test scores Since test designers are attempting to create fair and unbiased tests, one of the most important tasks of the constructors of reading comprehension assessments is the selection of suitable texts. At Haifa University, the reading comprehension course in English as a Foreign Language (EFL) is required for all students. The course is aimed at helping students deal with academic texts because most bibliographical material is written in English. The final examination for the course assesses whether students are capable of reading an academic expository text. Choosing appropriate texts for testing EFL is an important issue since the students are multilingual and multicultural, including native speakers of Hebrew, Arabic, Russian, Amharic and other languages. Certain topics are avoided that would lead to overinvolvement, upsetting the students during an exam or causing unnecessary anxiety, and the texts selected are based on pleasant and interesting, but relatively neutral subjects. Topics that are avoided include political issues, death, war and the army. Acceptable topics are social, psychological and family issues (e.g. education, anthropology, smoking habits, ecology and conservation, communications and the media).
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This paper presents the results of one testing session consisting of two parts. Part I contained a short section from each of two texts that students had already studied in class. Part II, on which this paper focuses, consisted of a new text that discussed love and marriage. Its language was of the appropriate level and register, its content familiar, and it was interesting on a personal level. The topic was expected to be conducive to high motivation and achievement on the final examination of the course. Results indicated the contrary, however, and the test proved to be unreliable, with some of the best students in the reading course receiving low scores. Given the various techniques at their disposal, then, what are the reasons for students to activate inappropriate schemata? It may be hypothesised that wrong schemata could be activated under the following 7 conditions: 1. Faulty top-down processing. When there is a macro-level conflict between the reader's prior knowledge and the text (i.e. the reader disagrees with the information in the text), the reader may decide, consciously or unconsciously, to disregard many of the micro-level clues in the text (Oded and Stavans, 1994). This situation would hold particularly for the poor language learner. 2. Faulty bottom-up processing or lack of automaticity in decoding the surface level of the text (Stanovich, 1980, 1986). Finding an obstacle in each unknown word or phrase, readers of low-level foreign language proficiency tend to spend so much energy on micro-level processing that they have less capacity left for general comprehension of the text. Thus, readers may turn to the macro-level, activating their previous knowledge rather than relying on vocabulary to abstract meaning and derive macro-structure from the text. Because of lack of sufficient vocabulary and syntax the reader may arrive at an inappropriate reading of the text. 3. Level of the student's English reading proficiency. Students of differing proficiency levels may use different types of strategies and make different kinds of errors. Even students of high linguistic proficiency sometimes give wrong answers to comprehension questions. Wrong answers may be attributable to the misunderstanding of a few key words, to carelessness, to inappropriate activation of schema, or to some combination of these factors. 4. Lack of motivation. Another situation teachers have often experienced may occur when the reader is uninterested in or bored by a text. Although familiar with the ideas and vocabulary, the reader may not make the effort to comprehend because of a lack of interest, a bad mood or an aversion to the subject matter. 5. Over-involvement. The opposite situation to condition 4 may arise. Readers may become so emotionally involved in a text that they may hastily activate a schema before fully processing textual clues. 6. The topic is unfamiliar or too abstract. In the case of a completely new subject or a specialised professional text, readers may not have adequate schemata to relate to the text. In an assessment situation, where language proficiency and reading comprehension are being tested, a completely unfamiliar topic or texts on a highly abstract level should be avoided because these place the student at an unfair disadvantage and may cause unnecessary anxiety. 7. Misleading or unfocused questions. Since the test questions constitute part of the task of reading comprehension, questions that are misleading or unfocused will hinder comprehension.
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Conditions 1 and 2 deal with students' text-linked reading skills and strategies. Condition 3 links English reading comprehension to student level as evidenced by scores. Conditions 46 refer to students' attitudes and perceptions towards the text. Condition 7 is a function of the skills of the test designer. Rationale for the testing procedure Tests of reading can focus on achievement or proficiency (Cohen, 1980). As part of an achievement test, previously studied texts can be included to indicate progress in the reading course. As part of a proficiency test, a new text is used to measure students' fluency and skill in reading. In the present study, to increase motivation in the course, as well as in the test, the examination consisted of two sections. Part I included two texts which had already been studied in the course, while Part II contained one text which was completely new to the students. Each part of the examination, however, tested a different kind of comprehension. In a situation where students are given two texts of equal difficulty, students would be expected to receive higher scores on a text that they have already studied (achievement test) than on a new text (proficiency test). A lower score on the achievement test, on the other hand, would indicate low motivation (i.e. students did not learn the text well). Since the English reading course is required of all students who are not exempted by the university entrance examination, students may see it as time-consuming and resent the studying that is involved. Conversely, in the proficiency part of the test, students might be expected to receive lower scores on the new test because of new vocabulary and the anxiety of dealing with new ideas in a test situation. In addition, there could be possible negative affective properties of the text content. Two of the many methods of evaluating L2 reading comprehension are translation (asking students to translate from an L2 text into L1) and macro-level shortanswer comprehension questions. Translation is more of a micro-level skill, although students need to show contextual flexibility and relate meaning to the macrostructure. Students were asked macro-level short-answer questions, on the assumption that they should be able to understand the propositions in the questions and match them with those in the text. A correct answer requires comprehension of text and matching questions. Depending on how the answers are scored, both microand macro-level errors can be detected and evaluated by a combination of both these methods. Permitting students to use the dictionary in a testing situation can make the proficiency test less anxiety provoking, while having no significant effect on scores (Bensoussan, Sim and Weiss, 1985). The scores of the more proficient students may improve only slightly, because they already comprehend most of the text, whereas the scores of the less proficient students will not improve because they are not in a position to make optimum use of the dictionary in a speeded test situation. Students need to use the dictionary efficiently during an examination, however, in order to avoid squandering valuable time. Dictionaries were permitted in Part II of the test used in the present study (the new text to assess proficiency) but not for Part I (the achievement test based on texts already studied). The teacher wished the students to feel reassured that they had an educational aid in case they did not know the meanings of some vocabulary.
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METHOD Participants The participants were 125 first-year students in four classes of an advanced EFL (English as a Foreign Language) reading course at the University Haifa, Israel, all of whom were taking the final three-hour examination of the 100-hour course in general academic English reading comprehension. The L1 for most of the students was Hebrew or Arabic. Tests and procedure The final examination (which counted 50% of the final grade in the course) consisted of two parts, each worth 50% of the examination score. Part I, lasting 75 minutes, contained two sections. The first section required students to translate five sentences containing vocabulary learned during the course. The second section contained two academic texts on abstract topics already read in class: one on political science, comparing a nation to a business enterprise, and the other on social psychology, explaining the dangers of uncritical Pavlovian conditioning on society. Each text was followed by expressions to be translated, macro-level short-answer comprehension questions to be answered in English, and reference words to be explained. No dictionary was allowed for this part since students were expected to have studied the vocabulary during the course. Following a 15-minute rest period, the students were presented with Part II, a new text. Students had 105 minutes to read the 830-word text and write brief answers. Students were required to translate expressions and whole sentences (which will not be discussed here), and to answer five short-answer comprehension questions in English. (See Appendix for preferred answers and sample student answers to comprehension questions.) For this part of the test, each student was allowed to use a monolingual or bilingual dictionary, the latter in any language (e.g. Hebrew, Arabic, Spanish, French). Since the course focused on general academic English, the text in the final examination was to be an example of expository prose of the kind found in most academic textbooks. The text needed to be general enough to interest all the students and not disadvantage anyone because of subject matter. A text about love and marriage taken from an article in a journal of psychology was selected and edited for this purpose. Scholarly references and technical paragraphs were omitted from the final 830-word version to make the text more accessible to the general reader. The subject was chosen on the assumption that everyone has a schema about love and therefore the text would be close to the personal experience of all the examinees. The text defines and describes love in terms of one person being sure that the other person can satisfy several of his or her deepest desires. The text goes on to expand on the topic of neurotic love and neurotic motives for marriage, including self-denigration, fear and power. These phenomena are contrasted with healthy marriages, in which there is a equal partnership of two independent individuals. Finally, the text cautions that early love marriages may prove unsatisfactory in the long run because the individuals change with time. In an attempt to link proficiency to patterns of answering in the assessment, frequencies of responses were tabulated according to the students' level of English
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reading proficiency (high, middle and low) and also according to error pattern. Wrong responses to the comprehension questions of the new text were examined for misunderstood vocabulary and for ideas or propositions given in responses that were unfocused, were not based on information from the text, or else contradicted it. A count was made of wrong answers where words were indiscriminately copied from the text without regard for meaning. Other kinds of markings that students wrote on the text and in the margins were also noted. As a separate, independent part of this study, students' texts were examined after the test. Students were free to write and translate on the text in the test booklet, and all materials were collected. It was hoped that individual styles of marking the text would offer clues to students' reading styles and strategies. Students were not told that their texts would be examined. These translations are reported in this study. The number of words translated was counted and then correlated with the student's test score to determine whether there was a significant link between the translating activity and the test score. Research questions The purpose of the study was to examine the relative importance of schemata-driven and non-schemata-driven factors in reading comprehension. The following were the principal research questions that were addressed: 1. When reading a new text, to what extent do students use previous knowledge (schemata) as evidenced in answers to short-answer questions? 2. When reading a new text, to what extent do students use vocabulary and syntax, as evidenced in answers to short-answer questions and translations of words in the text (with the help of a dictionary)? 3. Do the more proficient students use the same reading and test-taking strategies as the less proficient students? 4. How does student motivation affect test scores? 5. How does student involvement with the text affect test scores? 6. How does unfamiliarity or abstractness of the text affect test scores? 7. How would misleading or unfocused questions affect test scores? RESULTS Research question 1. When reading a new text, to what extent do students use previous knowledge (schemata)? Analysis of student responses to the five short-answer comprehension questions (see Table 1) indicated that of the total number of responses, there were 305 (49%) correct responses, 228 (36%) wrong attempted responses (both schema-driven and non-schema driven), and there were blanks for 92 (15%) responses. Results also indicated that 53 (23%) of the wrong attempted answers (that is, 8% of the total answers) were driven by students' schemata rather than by the text. An additional pattern appeared in the group of 175 non-schema-driven responses. There were 20 wrong answers (3% of the total answers) that were context bound, words copied from the text without regard for meaning. Half these answers were written by
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students in the low group; two came from high-level students. No other obvious patterns were found in the wrong non-schema-driven responses. (See Appendix for examples of incorrect responses.) The questions were not equally difficult, with correct scores ranging from a minimum of 44 out of 125 responses (Question 4) to a maximum of 90 (Question 5). However, no clear relation appeared between question difficulty and students' recourse to schemata. The percentage of schema-driven incorrect answers differed according to question, ranging from a minimum of 14% (5/24) for Question 3 to a maximum of 35% (7/15) for Question 5. The two hardest, Question 1 (45 correct responses) and Question 4 (44 correct ), contained relatively high percentages of the wrong use of schema (22% and 31%, respectively). However, the easiest (Question 5) had the highest percentage of schema-driven wrong answers (35%). Although students with low proficiency may have invented answers when failing to understand the text, this explanation does not hold true for Question 5.
Table 1. Distribution of responses to short-answer questions. Questions 1 Incorrect (Schema-driven){ (Not Schema-driven){ No answer Correct Total 72 (16) (56) 8 45 125 2 35 (7) (28) 28 62 125 3 37 (5) (32) 24 64 125 4 59 (18) (41) 21 44 125 5 20 (7) (13) 15 90 125 Total Number 228 (53) (175) 92 305 625 % 36 (8) (28) 15 49 100

{ Note: Figures in brackets are a breakdown of the number (and, in the final column, percentages) of incorrect responses into the two sub-categories (schema driven and not schema driven).

The following examples of students' wrong answers may yield clues as to the kinds of previous knowledge students brought with them to the text (see Appendix). Student 43 had certain opinions on love and marriage. The fact that these ideas did not appear in the text did not stop the student from inserting them into the answers. In the answer to Question 1, the student presented the extreme feminist position that women do not need men. The answer to Question 5 introduced the notion of children's interference and parents' guilt. The answer to Question 3 contained a series of opinions and ended in a flourish the students' stylised signature. With a score of 51, this student falls into the middle category of English reading proficiency. Having translated only five words, the student does not seem to have paid attention to the fine details of the text, indeed, these appear to be almost irrelevant in this case. Student 100 answered Question 4 using schemata that are contrary to the ideas in the text. Whereas the text stresses psychological causes of marital problems, this student answers that the cause of divorce is fatigue. With a score of 71, this student is
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in the high English reading proficiency category. The student did not translate any of the words in the text, perhaps reading only superficially on the macro-level and ignoring any unknown words. Student 103 also used schemata contrary to the text in answering Questions 1 and 4. According to this student, a couple marries for financial, not psychological, support. The reason for an unhealthy marriage is lack of love (not, as the author of the text asserts, the presence of neurotic love). A healthy marriage, the student believes, contains the good qualities of fear, power, and youth. According to the writer, however, these are characteristics of neurotic and therefore undesirable marriages. With a score of 24, this student is in the low English proficiency category. Having translated 36 words, this student made an effort at understanding vocabulary. Apparently, however, the student lacked a sufficient basic vocabulary for better comprehension. Research question 2. When reading a new text, to what extent do students use vocabulary and syntax? An examination of the texts after students had taken the examination revealed that students varied widely in their choice of whether or not to translate words in the text. Results of patterns of mistranslations are reported in detail in Bensoussan (1992). The number of translated words ranged from a minimum of no words translated to a maximum of 540 words. No significant correlations were found between number of words translated and scores for the test as a whole or either of its parts. Research question 3. Do the more proficient students use the same reading and test-taking strategies as the less proficient students? Student level did not influence results significantly since the 25 students who did better on Part I (previously studied texts) were equally divided among the three levels of English proficiency (low, middle, and high). To different extents, students of all three proficiency levels appeared to activate the correct schemata in answering questions (see Table 2). The 53 schema-driven wrong attempted answers (23%) were distributed as follows: low = 23 responses (24% of wrong attempted answers for the low group), middle = 21 responses (25%), and high = 9 responses (20%). Students of low proficiency had the most blanks (58, as opposed to 29 for the middle group and 10 for the high group). Students of high proficiency were more likely than the other groups to summarise or translate words and sentences in the margins of the text or to translate questions. Research question 4. How does student motivation affect test scores? Did students score higher on the part of the test covering material they had previously studied (achievement test) or on the part of the test containing the new text (proficiency test)? For 100 of the 125 participants, the proficiency test was found to be easier, whereas for only 25 students the achievement test was easier, and these students were equally distributed across the proficiency groups (9 low, 8 middle and 8 top). It has been argued earlier in this article that higher scores were generally to be expected for the achievement test; the finding that the reverse was the case is
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Table 2. Distribution of responses to short answer questions according to students' levels of English reading proficiency. English reading level Low Incorrect (Schema-driven){ (Not Schema-driven){ No answer Correct Total 95 (23) (72) 58 52 205 Middle 84 (21) (63) 29 97 210 High 44 (9) (35) 10 156 210 Total 228 (53) (175) 92 305 625

{ Note: Figures in brackets are a breakdown of the number of incorrect responses into the two sub-categories (schema driven and not schema driven).

hypothesised to be due to poor motivation during the course (see Rationale for testing procedure, page 217). Although there is a certain amount of overlap between the two parts of the examination, they seem to be testing different areas of knowledge or tapping different skills. The Pearson correlation between scores of Parts I (based on texts which students had already studied) and II (based on a totally new text) was 0.64 (p50.0001). Research question 5: How does student involvement affect test scores? An examination of student responses indicates students' personal involvement. They brought their own experiences (or stereotypes) into their responses, e.g. the feminist movement, fatigue and money in marriage. This factor did not appear to affect test scores, however. For example, student 100, with a high test score, included extraneous information, as did other students who performed less well. Research question 6. How does unfamiliarity or abstractness affect test scores? The texts in Part I were familiar but abstract. The Part II text on love, although unfamiliar to the students, was emotionally closer and more tangible. For 80% of the students, the text describing a familiar situation was easier, whereas for 20%, the abstract, previously studied texts were easier. These 20% were equally represented among students of top, middle, and low level proficiency. The low variance of 41% would indicate that several factors, in addition to text familiarity and abstractness, influenced test scores. Research question 7. How would misleading or unfocused questions affect test scores? Misleading and unfocused questions, equally confusing to students of high and low proficiency, reduce test validity and reliability. In this case, student scores would
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reflect their ability to decipher the questions rather than to comprehend the test. To correct this source of error for possibly ambiguous questions, students were not penalised for a response that was not specified in the answer key if it reflected a competent reading of the question and text. DISCUSSION Use of wrong schemata or prior knowledge was probably a significant factor influencing test scores. Since no relation was found between wrong use of schema and difficulty of test questions, it may be assumed that the difficulty is found in the text itself. One reason may be that many students did not appear to make maximal use of micro-level clues in context, even with dictionaries. Because of the time limits of the testing situation, weak students may be lacking so much of the vocabulary that they are not even in a position to catch the drift of the text, even with the help of a dictionary. Alternatively, students may have ignored clues on the micro-level because of preconceived notions on the macro-level. The comparatively higher scores on the text on love could indicate significant student interest, lack of motivation in reading the class texts, difficulty with the abstractness of the old texts, or a combination of all three. Despite student interest in the new text, error patterns indicate a certain lack of comprehension on the macrolevel even when student grades were high. Inefficient use of the dictionary could have been a factor influencing scores. The occurrence of mistranslations suggests that students did not make best use of the dictionary under the circumstances. The findings of Bensoussan et al (1985), which showed no significant differences in scores whether or not students used dictionaries, would indicate that under test conditions dictionaries are more of a psychological crutch than a real tool for reading a new text. Some students might have used the first, rather than the most contextually appropriate, dictionary definition of a word or expression. It is also possible that the richness of vocabulary in the text made it impossible for students to use the dictionary in the limited test time. Students of high L2 proficiency appeared slightly less liable to activate wrong schemata. They came to the text with a better knowledge of vocabulary than did the other groups and were thus better able to focus on comprehension strategies, in line with findings by Stanovich (1980). They also tended to put more of their thinking processes on paper than did the other two groups. In contrast, low level students were less likely to guess and more likely to leave questions blank if they did not know the answers. Student motivation during the course and for the test were two other factors to be reckoned with. There were high level students taking the English reading course who did not give it top priority in their studies and who did not study conscientiously for Part I. Such students may have done better on Part II, especially since they would have been able to use the dictionary well within the time limits for Part II of the test. Since the reason for including previously learned material was for students to review vocabulary and linguistic structures studied during the course, it is surprising that scores were not higher on the part of the test that students had already studied. Motivation, then, rather than English proficiency, may be a key factor in these results.
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One possible reason that students scored highly on Part II (new text) may be that they were more interested in the topic of love and marriage than the other two more abstract and less personal subjects. In contrast, over-involvement or disagreement with the text may be one reason why students answered comprehension questions wrongly. Given a clash of opinions between reader and writer, careless or poor readers, especially when under the time pressures of a test, may refuse to make the effort of trying to comprehend new ideas and opinions in the text. This process may compounded by cultural differences between reader and text (Carrell, 1987; Floyd and Carrell, 1987; Grabe, 1991; Hidi, 1990; Pritchard, 1990; Steffensen, 1986; Steffensen and Joag-Dev, 1984; Steffensen, Joag-Dev and Anderson, 1979). Abstract topics may account for the lower scores on Part I of the test. Even though students were familiar with the texts, as indicated by their answers to the comprehension questions, they did not relate to these previously studied texts on as emotional and personal a level as they related to the text on love and marriage. A combination of the abstract quality of the previously studied texts, together with the personal nature of the text on love and marriage, might explain the significantly higher scores for the new Part II than for the old Part I. Familiarity with the subject of the Part II text may have relaxed some students, thus reducing some of the debilitating effects of test anxiety. Anxiety can affect scores either way: as a facilitator or as a debilitator (see Bensoussan and Zeidner, 1989). The anxiety of meeting a new text in a test situation may have reduced some scores while raising others. Unfocused questions may have led to activation of inappropriate schemata. The questions were general and did not specifically stipulate that students were to answer them according to the text (although this point had been emphasised during the course). As a result of this testing experience, on subsequent tests, we now precede macro-level short-answer questions with the words, `According to the text' or `According to the writer'. These words help to clarify the questions and remind the student to relate to the opinions of the writer in the text. A conclusion that may be drawn from this study is that students' attitudes toward text content may be a powerful factor in determining test scores, perhaps as important as the factor of language proficiency. As more and more testing situations cross linguistic and cultural lines, research is needed to examine previously accepted assumptions about the nature of the tests. If such a relatively `harmless' topic as love can skew test results of even some high level students, then other more controversial topics would be likely to bias results against examinees whose world views, clashing with those of the test writer, interfered with their test performance. These factors need to be taken into consideration by test designers, especially in the construction of parallel versions of a reading test. Choice of text affects the examinee's motivation and potential for understanding, and ultimately the validity and reliability of a test. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to thank Dr Isabelle Kreindler, Department of Foreign Languages, and Dr Salim Abu-Rabia, Faculty of Education, for their helpful comments.
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REFERENCES
(1980) Failures to comprehend and levels of processing in reading. In R.J. Spiro, B.C. Bruce and W.F. Brewer (eds.) Theoretical Issues in Reading Comprehension. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, pp. 1112. AFFLERBACH, P. (1990a) The influence of prior knowledge and text genre on readers' prediction strategies, Journal of Reading Behavior, 22(2), 131148. AFFLERBACH, P. (1990b) The influence of prior knowledge on expert readers'main ideas construction strategies. Reading Research Quarterly, 25, 3146. ANDERSON, R.C. and PEARSON, P. (1984) A Schema-TheoreticView of Basic Processes in Reading Comprehension. (Technical Report No. 306), Center for the Study of Reading, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. AUBLE, P. and FRANKS, J. (1983) Sentence comprehension processes. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 22, 395405. BENSOUSSAN, M. (1992) Learners' spontaneous translations in an L2 reading comprehension task: vocabulary knowledge and use of schemata. In P. Arnaud and H. Bejoint (eds.) Vocabulary and Applied Linguistics. London: Macmillan, pp. 102112. BENSOUSSAN, M., SIM, D. and WEISS, R. (1985) The effect of dictionary usage on EFL test performance compared with student and teacher attitudes and expectations. Reading in a Foreign Language, 2(2), 262276. BENSOUSSAN, M. and ZEIDNER, M. (1989) Anxiety and achievement in a multicultural situation: the oral testing of Advanced English Reading Comprehension. Assessment and Evaluation in Higher Education, 14(1), 4054. CARRELL, P. (1987) Content and formal schemata in ESL Reading. TESOL Quarterly, 21(3), 461481. CARRELL, P. (1985) Facilitating ESL reading by teaching text structure. TESOL Quarterly, 19(4), 727752. CARRELL, P. (1984) Evidence of a formal schema in second language comprehension, Language Learning, 34(2), 87112. COHEN, A. (1980) Testing Language Ability in the Classroom. Rowley, MA: Newbury House. FINCHER-KIEFER, R. (1992) The role of prior knowledge in inferential processing. Journal of Research in Reading, 15(1), 1227. FINCHER-KIEFER, R., POST, T.A., GREENE, T.R. and VOSS, J.F. (1988) On the role of prior knowledge and task demands in the processing of text. Journal of Memory and Language, 27, 416428. FOLEY, C. (1992) Evaluating the use of prediction: an experimental study with junior high remedial readers in individualized and small group settings. Journal of Research in Reading, 15(1), 2838. FLOYD, P. and CARRELL, P. (1987) Effects on ESL Reading of teaching cultural content schemata. Language Learning, 37, 89108. GRABE, W. (1991) Current developments in second language reading research. TESOL Quarterly, 25, 375406. KINTSCH, W. and VAN DIJK, T. (1978) Toward a model of text comprehension and production. Psychological Review, 85(5), 363394. NELSON, G. (1987) Culture's role in reading comprehension: A schema theoretical approach. Journal of Reading, 30, 424429. ODED, B. and STAVANS, A. (1994) The effect of `False' Schema Activation on the construction of meaning. System, 22(4), 497507. PRITCHARD, R. (1990) The effects of cultural schemata on reading processing strategies. Reading Research Quarterly, 25(4), 273295. RUMELHART, D.E. (1980) Schemata: the building blocks of cognition. In R.J. Spiro, B.C. Bruce and W.F. Brewer (eds.) Theoretical Issues in Reading Comprehension. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, pp. 3358. th SMITH, F. (1994) Understanding Reading (5 edition). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. SPIRO, R.J. (1980) Constructive Processes in Prose Comprehension and Recall. In R.J. Spiro, B.C. Bruce and W.F. Brewer (eds.) Theoretical Issues in Reading Comprehension. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, pp. 245278. STANOVICH, K. (1980) Toward an interactive-compensatory model of individual differences in the development of reading fluency. Reading Research Quarterly, 16(1), 3271. STANOVICH, K. (1986) Matthew effects in reading: some consequences of individual differences in the acquisition of literacy. Reading Research Quarterly, 21(4), 360406. STEFFENSEN, M. (1986) Register, cohesion, and cross-cultural reading comprehension. Applied Linguistics, 7(1), 7185.
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and JOAG-DEV. C. (1984) Cultural knowledge and reading. In J. Charles Alderson and A.H. Urquhart (eds.) Reading in a Foreign Language. London and New York: Longman, pp. 4864. STEFFENSEN, M., JOAG-DEV, C. and ANDERSON, R.C. (1970) A cross-cultural perspective on reading comprehension. Reading Research Quarterly, 15, 1029. VAN DIJK, T. (1980) Macrostructures. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. VAN OOSTENDORP, H. (1991) Inferences and integrations made by readers of script-based texts, Journal of Research in Reading, 14(1), 320.

Address for Correspondence: DR. MARSHA BENSOUSSAN, Department of Foreign Languages, The University of Haifa, Mount Carmel, Haifa, 31905, ISRAEL. E-mail: rhfl304@uvm.haifa.ac.il
APPENDIX Short-answer questions and preferred answers Q1. Why would the independent woman marry a dependent man? (A: To satisfy neurotic needs.) Q2. Explain and illustrate the concept of self-denigration. (A: Feeling of unworthiness, plus an example) Q3. What is wrong with marriage caused by self-denigration? (A: Respect and self-value should be derived from within, not from without. One can never receive a feeling of self-acceptance and worthwhileness from others.) Q4. What is the difference between a healthy and an unhealthy marriage? (A: A healthy marriage is independent and growth-motivated. The relationship is stable. An unhealthy marriage is dependent. The partners need to marry for status, to elevate the ego.) Q5. Why is it dangerous to marry early? (A: People change. In an early marriage, each partner is not yet fully formed. Time steps in and they can grow apart.) Examples of schema-driven wrong responses (unedited) Student 43 (reading comprehension score: 51; native language: Hebrew; translated 5 words). Question 1. `The independent woman need a dependent man, beacause she will fell more responsable; this case, we can to see, in the womens that perfence to a group of feministes womens. They think, that women can to live without mate, and she d'ont need the help of the man.' Question 3. `The wrong is that, the mate, the man, as equal as the women, does failes, and may be, they think that the others are more perfects, and this is a problem. In my opinion, the marriage in the start is love, after is only costume, and into all the homes there are problems. I think that anyone is more inferior or superior like the his mate. Together they need to go, and to do the way, as simple and beautifule as they can. Now, I don't now about this case; when I will married I will narrate you.' (Note: This was a highly personalised answer, which concluded with the student's stylised but illegible signature, even though tests are supposed to be anonymous.) Question 5. `That they can to be divorced also early. Is more difficul to be married when she or he they are adolescents. This is not, in my opinion a healthy marriage. And the guilt come from the parents of the new mate.' Student 100 (reading comprehension score: 71; native language: Hebrew; translated 0 words). Question 4. `A healthy marrige last for ever and relationship between mates become as the years pass more stronger then they were befor and the couple is becoming good freinds and can raise a healthy family. An unhealthy marriage doesn't last for ever and soon the mates becames tired and want to divorce.'
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Student 103 (reading comprehension score: 24; native language: Arabic; translated 36 words). Question 1. `That the man and the women know that they do not good the one to the other and that this doing never be healthy to the both because the man don't like his women but they marry because mony will be happe maby the man take the women because she had a money or somthing that he take the women to this thing and the oposite.' Question 4. `Unhealthy is that we do not found love between man and women, and we do not found them friends and maby they marred. in 40-50 years its not healty. But the healthy to be young and love each other frinds beautiful women and saint man and we found their in the healthy marriage fear and power, love, and good life.' Examples of context-bound responses (unedited) Student 102 (reading comprehension score: 50; native language: Arabic; translated 11 words). Question 1. `The independent woman pursues the dependent man if needs are for mumiliation, punishment, guilt or blame, the marriage will prove most stormy. and it is kind of unhealthy symbiosis. Question 4. `Healthy marriages do not more or less than bring togather two people who fell fairly independent who never feel they need a mate and don't mont to a hill of beans unless they love. In the other hand the unhealthy marriages is the alcoholic male, or the independent women makes pursues to dependent man.' Student 106 (reading comprehension score: 57; native language: Hebrew; translated 33 words). Question 1. `Couple want to complet one another so the lake of one of them is completed at the other. Also ther is between them because of this magntism.' Question 4. `The difference is the cause of the marrige, a healty couples marry because a lasting union provides them while unhealthy marrige try to solve his or her problems by marriage.'

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