Investigating the contributions of background knowledge and reading comprehension strategies to L2 reading comprehension: an exploratory study

Abstract

While a number of studies have investigated the influence of background knowledge and reading comprehension strategies on comprehension, no L2 research exists examining and comparing the unique contributions of these two variables examined together. Therefore, the purpose of this exploratory study was to investigate the combined and individual contributions of background knowledge and reading comprehension strategies to reading comprehension. Data collected from 20 university-level English language learners were analyzed using regression analyses. The results indicated that background knowledge and reading comprehension strategies, operationalized as self-questioning, combined to account for a significant portion of variance in reading comprehension scores, with self-questioning being a stronger predictor of reading comprehension than background knowledge.