Abstract of

"That's Just How It Was": The Effect of Issue-Related Emotional Involvement on Reading Comprehension

Robert W. Gaskins

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of issue-related emotional involvement on reading comprehension. Three groups of 24 eighth graders from the Philadelphia and Boston areas read silently a text about a basketball game which ended in a fight. The subjects in two of these groups were highly emotionally involved with one of the teams in the text they read. The subjects in the third group were not emotionally involved with either of the teams in the text they read. After reading the text, students recalled the passage from memory and answered three questions pertaining to the text. Students' responses to the questions were combined to form a score representing the degree and direction of bias represented in their interpretation of the text that they read. Group means were then calculated and compared using a single factor analysis of variance. Pairwise comparisons were conducted using the least significant difference test. Students' comments throughout the sessions were examined and provided as data to support and clarify the quantitative analyses. The results indicated that there was a significant difference between the way the three groups interpreted the text. The two high emotional involvement groups interpreted the text in line with their affiliation, and the control group interpreted the text more neutrally. These findings support the hypothesis that emotional involvement can have an important impact on how we interpret texts. Implications of this study are discussed in relation to theories of text processing, critical thinking, and conceptual change.

Abstract from Gaskins, R.W. (1996). "That's Just How It Was": The Effect of Issue-Related Emotional Involvement on Reading Comprehension. Reading Research Quarterly, 31(4), 386–405. doi: 10.1598/RRQ.31.4.3