Jennifer Stiegler-Balfour presents latest research at 2012 New England Psychological Association Conference

Assistant Professor of Psychology, Jennifer Stiegler-Balfour, Ph.D., presented her most recent research on the correlation between reading skill and academic success at the 2012 New England Psychological Association Conference in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Her talk, titled, “What they can’t comprehend may hurt them: The effect of reading skill on academic success” outlined why students who are able to focus on the most relevant aspects of text and frequently employ reading strategies perform better in an academic setting.

Stiegler-Balfour presented results that indicated that less-skilled students often overestimate their own abilities and, as a result, lack the metacognitive awareness to employ successful reading strategies. Further, the results of her study showed that less-skilled readers’ performance could be enhanced by providing them with guiding questions that help them focus on the most relevant parts of expository text.
 

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