The implicit theories about text comprehension and the reading competency of the first year students at Universidad de Magallanes

Abstract

This article is about the study of the implicit theories regarding the text comprehension of university students and its relationship with the level of reading competence. The implicit theories become relevant because they would guide the actions of the individuals interacting with the reading competence, restricting or activating different reading strategies. To identify the implicit theories of the students a questionnaire of implicit theories on text comprehension was applied (Makuc, 2009). The reading competence of the students was dealt with a battery of tests on text comprehension (Parodi, 2005). This study enabled us to establish the prevalence of two implicit theories about the comprehension: the interactive and the literary; in relation to the reading competence. The students who achieved higher levels were those who adhered to the interactive implicit theory.