Chapter 8: The Effects of Passage Content on Second Language Reading Comprehension by Gender Across Instruction Levels

At the university level, Brantmeier (2000) found significant interactions between readers’ gender and passage content with comprehension among intermediate second language (L2) learners of Spanish. In that study, participants read passages of approximately 600 words, one about boxing and the other about a frustrated housewife. Both written recall and multiple-choice assessment tasks were utilized to measure reading comprehension. Brantmeier suggested that at the intermediate level of instruction it may not be the Spanish language (a linguistic factor) that impedes second language reading comprehension but rather the unfamiliar content of the text. The present investigation used the same research design and procedures with two groups of participants from higher levels of instruction in order to determine the level at which passage content no longer impedes L2 reading comprehension. Participants were 76 students from advanced grammar courses and 56 students from advanced literature courses. Scores were submitted to an analysis of variance (ANOVA). Results revealed no significant interaction between readers’ gender and passage content with comprehension. These results provide evidence that while degrees of topic familiarity maintain across instruction levels, the effects of passage content on L2 reading comprehension by gender do not maintain when the intermediate level text is read by more advanced learners.