PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

Previous research generally confirms that both person and item characteristics affect individuals’ mathematics and science performance. Thus, individuals’ performance depends on their reading component skills and on the linguistic presentation of mathematics and science items. The academic community has explored the main effects of person and item characteristics on disciplinary performance extensively. However, little research has been conducted to examine the interaction effects of these two characteristics on disciplinary performance. This thesis aims to address this shortcoming. Thus, three studies were conducted. Study 1 examined the interaction effect of (1) students’ reading comprehension and (2) the word count of items on science performance. Study 2 investigated the interaction effects of (1) adults’ reading component skills (general vocabulary, sentence processing, and passage comprehension) and (2) the characteristics of items (pictures, verb forms, prepositions, and lexical density) on mathematics performance. Study 3 explored the interaction effect of (1) students’ diagnosis of a specific learning disorder with impairments in reading and (2) the linguistic simplification of items on science performance. The results showed that interaction effects only emerged when person characteristics were examined at the text level. Contrary to the coded item characteristics, all of the assessed reading component skills significantly affected mathematics and science performance as main effects. These findings are discussed in the thesis. Short- and long-term practical implications, such as the desirability of raising awareness of the importance of person and item characteristics to disciplinary performance in the educational context, are derived. Furthermore, the thesis discusses two limitations and identifies desiderata for future research, including the need for a theoretical model.