Sarah Carlson

The research team refined and validated a reading comprehension assessment (MOCCA), which was the product of an IES-funded project (R305A140185) and was designed for and validated with third- through fifth-grade students, for use with postsecondary students. The refined assessment, MOCCA-College (MOCCA-C) is a practical, reliable, and valid measure of reading comprehension processes that can help postsecondary practitioners, administrators, and researchers diagnose students' reading comprehe...

Numerous children struggle with reading comprehension and previous research shows that a subset of these children struggle with higher level reading skills, such as maintaining causal coherence while reading. Causal coherence is created through inferences that require the reader to synthesize why an event occurs based on relevant goals previously identified in the text and to generate missing information from background knowledge. Students who struggle with causal coherence typically fall in...

This postdoctoral training program supported and trained five post-doctoral fellows with expertise in the following areas: (1) research design and implementation, (2) applied content expertise, and (3) methodology and data analysis