A Latent Variable Modeling Approach of the Relations among Morphological Awareness, Vocabulary Knowledge, and Reading Comprehension in Adult Basic Education Students

• Main Authors: Elizabeth L Tighe, Christopher eSchatschneider
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Frontiers Media S.A. 2016-02-01
• Series: Frontiers in Psychology
• Subjects: Structural Equation Modeling; reading comprehension; vocabulary knowledge; morphological awareness; Adult basic education
• Online Access: http://journal.frontiersin.org/Journal/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00086/full

This study extended the findings of Tighe and Schatschneider (2015) by investigating the predictive utility of separate dimensions of morphological awareness as well as vocabulary knowledge to reading comprehension in Adult Basic Education (ABE) students. We competed 2- and 3-factor structural equation models of reading comprehension. A 3-factor model of real word morphological awareness, pseudoword morphological awareness, and vocabulary knowledge emerged as the best fit and accounted for 79% of the reading comprehension variance. The results indicated that the constructs contributed jointly to reading comprehension; however, vocabulary knowledge was the only potentially unique predictor (p = .052), accounting for an additional 5.6% of the variance. This study demonstrates the feasibility of applying a latent variable modeling approach to examine individual differences in the reading comprehension skills of ABE students. Further, this study replicates the findings of Tighe and Schatschneider (2015) of the importance of differentiating among dimensions of morphological awareness in this population.