Understanding of expository texts in college students: the function of previous knowledge

Abstract

The result of text understanding depends on the linguistic properties of the speech as well
as the reader’s characteristics. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the influence of
the previous knowledge in understanding general and specific expository texts. For it, two texts were given to novel and expert readers: one divulgation expository text and the other
one specialized expository text, by comparing the summaries of both and the answers to
questions as a measure of reading understanding. In both groups no significant differences
were found regarding general text understanding, though a better performance of the expert group was attained regarding the disciplinarian text. Taking into account the grouping variable of subjects, these results should support the hypothesis by which prior knowledge would be the main explanatory factor regarding the yield difference between both groups.