By Idegu, Alhaji Solomon
This study investigated relationships among the structural and cultural features of texts, the reader’s use of cognitive strategies, and the reading comprehension performance of a sample of Kogi State university undergraduate students. Five hundred free recall protocols yielded by a random sample of 100 first and fourth year university students were analysed. The study found that the reading comprehension performance of the sample is significantly related to literal comprehension as well as to the structural and cultural features of texts, and that choice of a point of view and cognitive strategies is determined by text conditions and subject differences. The study therefore, concluded that the major text processing activities of students were limited to the explicit meaning of texts.The facilitative effects of the cultural features of texts served good comprehenders only and that reading comprehension ability was fluid along a high-low continuum. The principal implication of the study was that classroom teachers should teach comprehension processes and strategies directly with attention to the structural features of texts and emphasis on training in inferential processing of information. Major recommendations for future studies included generalization of the results to a larger population, replication of the study, and similar studies which would employ current techniques to provide greater insight into the operation of cognitive processes.