The role of monitoring, prior knowledge, and working memory in university students’ expository text comprehension

• Juan P. Barreyro ^[1] ; Sofía S. Ortíz ^[1] ; Jesica Formoso ^[1]
  1. [1] Centro Interdisciplinario de Investigaciones en Psicología Matemática y Experimental (CIIPME) – CONICET, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires (CABA), Argentina
• Localización: Psicología educativa, ISSN 1135-755X, Vol. 31, Nº. 1, 2025, págs. 45-54
• Idioma: inglés
• DOI: 10.5093/psed2025a6
• Títulos paralelos:
  • El rol del monitoreo, el conocimiento previo y la memoria operativa en la comprensión de textos expositivos en estudiantes universitarios
• Enlaces
  • Texto completo (pdf)
• Resumen
  • español

    Este trabajo tiene como propósito examinar el efecto de una estrategia de monitoreo en la comprensión de textos expositivos, teniendo en cuenta la influencia del conocimiento previo y la capacidad de la memoria operativa en alumnos universitarios. Se realizaron dos experimentos, el primero de los cuales investigó si el uso de la estrategia de monitoreo mejora la comprensión de textos expositivos con diferente nivel de conocimiento previo y el segundo exploró el papel de la memoria operativa. Los resultados revelan que el uso de la estrategia de monitoreo mejora la comprensión independientemente del nivel de conocimiento previo. Además, se encontró que una gran capacidad de memoria operativa se asociaba con una mejor comprensión, especialmente en textos de escaso conocimiento previo. Estos resultados subrayan la importancia de considerar tanto la estrategia de monitoreo como la capacidad de la memoria operativa en la comprensión de textos expositivos, con implicaciones para el ámbito universitario.

  • English

    The aim of this study is to analyze the impact of a monitoring strategy on the comprehension of expository texts, taking into account the influence of prior knowledge and working memory capacity in university students. Two experiments were conducted. The first investigated whether the use of the monitoring strategy enhanced comprehension of expository texts that required different levels of prior knowledge. The second experiment enquired into the role of working memory in conjunction with the monitoring strategy and varying levels of prior knowledge. The results revealed that the use of the monitoring strategy improved comprehension regardless of prior knowledge level. Furthermore, high working memory capacity is found to be associated with better comprehension, particularly in texts with low prior knowledge content. These findings highlight the importance of considering both the monitoring strategy and working memory capacity in the comprehension of expository texts, with implications for university contexts.

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