Effects of Prior Topic Knowledge and English Language Proficiency on EFL Reading Comprehension of Two Types of Expository Text

Abstract

Prior knowledge has been proven to be a very influential factor in the reading comprehension of expository texts. Among diverse domains of expository texts, the significant role of prior knowledge in the L1 reading comprehension of science texts has been reported. To examine the role of prior topic knowledge in the L2 reading comprehension of expository texts, 77 Korean high school students read two types of expository texts: two science texts (i.e., chemistry and physics) and two non-science texts (i.e., music and history). We also measured the students prior topic knowledge, English proficiency, and reading comprehension to investigate the interaction between prior topic knowledge and English proficiency. According to our multiple regression analyses, both science topic knowledge (β = .48) and English proficiency (β = .43) were significant predictors of reading comprehension in the case of science texts. Additionally, science topic knowledge (β = .53) was a stronger predictor of reading comprehension for the situation model questions that intend for the higher level of comprehension than for the textbase questions that intend for the propositional level of comprehension (β = .36) when reading science texts. In the case of the non-science texts, music and history topic knowledge was not a significant predictor because the readers had generally low prior topic knowledge. The reading comprehension of non-science texts was dominantly explained by English proficiency. Interestingly, science topic knowledge was a significant predictor of reading comprehension of the non-science texts in the case of textbase questions, but not situation model questions.