Examination of Different Reading Strategies with Eye Tracking Measures in Paragraph Questions

This study aims at investigating the effects of two different test-taking strategies on reading achievement, dwell time, fixation counts and number of regressions on area of interests (AOIs) of the multiple choice reading comprehension questions with different type and difficulty levels. In this true experimental study, 28 subjects are randomly assigned into two groups. While subjects in stem first strategy (S-FS) group read the question stem first, subjects in paragraph first strategy group (P-FS) read paragraph first. Results of this study show that dwell time, fixation counts, and number of regressions on question stem AOIs in the S-FS group are significantly higher than the P-FS group. As a result, contrary to the common recommendations in practice, reading the question stem first provides no advantage in terms of reading achievement and dwell time as expected. Moreover, the S-FS significantly increases dwell time, fixation counts, and number of regressions on question stem AOIs.