Actions for Understanding the Impact of Traumatic Experiences on College Students' Use of Metacognitive Monitoring During a Reading Comprehension Task

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Understanding the Impact of Traumatic Experiences on College Students' Use of Metacognitive Monitoring During a Reading Comprehension Task

Author
Ferrara, Amanda Marie
Published
[University Park, Pennsylvania] : Pennsylvania State University, 2022.
Physical Description
1 electronic document
Additional Creators
Sperling, Rayne A.
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Restricted (PSU Only).
Summary
Background: Experiences of adversity and trauma have been associated with poor reading abilities for college students; however, there is a dearth of literature examining the learning processes that drive reading comprehension for students with a history of early adversity. Metacognitive monitoring has long been regarded as critical to reading comprehension (Wiley et al., 2016). Thus, poor metacognitive monitoring, specifically during reading comprehension tasks, is one such learning process that could help explain the achievement gap between students who have experienced trauma and their peers (e.g., Hong et al., 2018; Widom et al., 2012). Objective: The present study sought to understand the extent to which college students who have experiences of lifetime adversity, childhood maltreatment, or symptoms of trauma differ from their peers in their use of metacognitive monitoring during a reading comprehension task. Method: Reading comprehension, metacomprehension, and reading comprehension posttest metacognitive monitoring data were collected from 765 college undergraduates. The students also self-reported their experiences of trauma (i.e., experiences of lifetime adversity, childhood maltreatment, and symptoms of trauma). The relationship of each of the self-reports of trauma to absolute and relative metacomprehension and posttest metacognitive monitoring was tested. In addition, a path model was eastimated to test if relative metacomprehension or posttest metacognitive monitoring mediated the relationship between each measure of trauma and reading comprehension. Results: In two separate multiple regression analyses, the present study found that child maltreatment experiences, but not experiences of lifetime adversity or posttraumatic stress symptoms, were predictive of absolute metacomprehension accuracy (i.e., students' accuracy in estimating their reading comprehension prior to seeing the comprehension test) as well as absolute metacognitive monitoring accuracy on the posttest (i.e., students' accuracy in estimating their performance on each posttest question). In both cases, students who reported more childhood maltreatment demonstrated worse accuracy. In a third multiple regression analysis, lifetime traumatic events, childhood maltreatment experiences, and posttraumatic stress symptoms failed to predict relative metacomprehension accuracy. However, in a final multiple regression analysis, posttraumatic stress symptoms, but not lifetime traumatic events or childhood maltreatment experiences, were predictive of relative metacognitive monitoring on the posttest such that students who reported more symptoms also demonstrated worse accuracy. In addition, the study resulted in three main findings from the estimated path analysis. First, students' lifetime experiences of adversity were not directly or indirectly related to their reading comprehension, metacomprehension accuracy, or posttest monitoring accuracy. Second, students' experiences of child maltreatment were directly related to their reading comprehension such that students who reported more experiences of child maltreatment demonstrated better reading comprehension. There were no direct effects of maltreatment on either metacognitive monitoring variable or indirect effects of child maltreatment, meaning neither metacomprehension accuracy nor posttest monitoring accuracy mediated the relationship between child maltreatment and reading comprehension. Third, there was an indirect effect of posttraumatic stress symptoms on reading comprehension. Specifically, the relationship between posttraumatic stress symptoms and reading comprehension was mediated by posttest relative monitoring accuracy such that students who reported more posttraumatic stress symptoms demonstrated worse relative monitoring accuracy, and worse monitoring accuracy predicted worse reading comprehension. Relative metacomprehension accuracy did not mediate the relationship between posttraumatic stress symptoms and reading comprehension. Conclusions: The present study found differential effects of lifetime experiences of adversity, child maltreatment, and posttraumatic stress on college students' metacognitive monitoring during a reading comprehension task. As such, this study suggests that college students who have experienced trauma can benefit from academic interventions and supports targeting self-regulated learning processes.
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Dissertation Note
Ph.D. Pennsylvania State University 2022.
Technical Details
The full text of the dissertation is available as an Adobe Acrobat .pdf file ; Adobe Acrobat Reader required to view the file.
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