The Effect Of Schema On Information Comprehension And Acquisition With Chinese EFL Learners

Schema theory has developed into the most influential framework for its powerful account of the process of reading now. Nearly all the experiments in support of schema theory involve situations where subjects are prompted to activate preexisting schemata or to build up schemata prior to reading. The schemata activated or built-up may have a negative influence on textual informativity. That means they may lower textual informativity which in turn lower the motivation of readers to read. From the perspective of information, this study aims to explore the effects of schemata on reading comprehension, mainly information comprehension, and the acquisition of new information on the basis of the understanding with Chinese EFL students.All the subjects participating in the present study came from one of the major universities in the southwestern part of China. Forty students, selected from two natural classes by pair-sampling, were assigned to four groups, ten subjects for each group. They participated in two treatments: one for information comprehension and another for information acquisition. The subjects were tested on reading comprehension through the use of multiple-choice questions on new information in the passages. The task of writing of new information was also assigned to the subjects for the purpose of exploring information acquisition.Multivariate analysis of variance indicated that schema and reading competence both are important factors in new information comprehension and acquisition with Chinese EFL readers. However, their roles are affected by other factors. In terms of new information comprehension, the roles of schema are different for different informativity of reading materials. Schema is more efficient for reading materials with higher informativity. Again, the roles of schema are different for the subjects at different reading competence. Schema is more effective with Chinese EFL readers with lower reading competence, to a certain extent. If taking informativity into consideration, there is something different. For the reading materials with higher informativity, schema is more effective with Chinese EFL readers with higher reading competence while for the reading materials with lower informativity, schema is more effective with Chinese EFL readers with lower reading competence. However, for the reading materials with different informativity, the importance of two factors is different. For the reading materials with lower informativity, reading competence is more important while for the reading materials with higher informativity, schema is more important.Concerning information acquisition, the roles of schema and reading competence are affected by different representations of new information. When new information is represented by fewer propositions at upper layer in proposition tree, schema and reading competence become less effective; when new information is represented by...