Effects of beliefs about meaning construction and task instructions on interpretation of narrative text

Two dimensions of students’ beliefs about meaning construction in reading processes, transmission and transaction beliefs, were studied. According to transmission beliefs, the reader’s task is to understand the author’s intended meaning, while transaction beliefs assign to the reader the role of active meaning constructor. Students’ beliefs were ascertained by means of a questionnaire (Schraw, 2000), and the effects of these beliefs on narrative text comprehension and interpretation were examined. The first study, involving 52 students in grade 11, showed that transaction beliefs positively affected text interpretation in the form of personal and thematic responses. Study 2, involving 202 students in grades 7 and 11, revealed the influence of transaction beliefs on text comprehension, thematic, and personal interpretative responses, and overall meaning construction. It also showed the positive effects of giving specific rather than generic instructions for the interpretative task. Moreover, grade level significantly affected text comprehension and interpretation. Finally, differences in student performances were also related to the type of high school they were enrolled in.