Does previewing answer choice options improve performance on reading tests?

We examined eye movement patterns of participants who completed online multiple-choice sentence completion tasks, and how previewing was related to reading performance and whether the relation varied as a function of English proficiency level. The results showed that, relative to no previewing, previewing was associated with a significantly lower probability of answering an item correctly but not with significantly longer response time. Importantly, these relations varied across English proficiency levels such that participants with higher proficiency performed better without previewing, but there was no difference for lower-intermediate learners of English. These findings suggest that previewing does not facilitate performance on a sentence comprehension task, but instead interferes with the comprehension process, particularly for individuals with relatively high language proficiency.
Source: Reading and Writing - Category: Child Development Source Type: research