The Relationship between Type-Preference Scores and Reading Comprehension Achievement Scores

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to ascertain whether or not cognitive preferences, as measured by an indicator of psychological type, have a significant relationship to performance on standardized reading comprehension tests. The subjects of this study were a group of one hundred college freshmen randomly selected from an incoming population at a mid-sized technical institution. All students were administered both the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (Myers, 1962) and the Nelson-Denny Reading Comprehension Subtest (Brown, Bennett, & Hanna, 1981). The scoring of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator resulted in a four-letter type composite made up of two attitude preference scores and two function preference scores for each student. The Nelson-Denny scores were broken down into percent correct on the literal questions, percent correct on the inferential questions, percent correct of those attempted, and a percentile ranking. Chi-square tests of independence were done to see if significant relationships existed at the .05 level. The results indicated that a significant relationship did exist between S/N type-preferences and scores on the inferential questions. Also, there was a significant relationship between J/P type-preferences and percentile rankings. Recommendations for future research is this area, as well as implications for the findings of this study, were discussed.