Morphological Sensitivity: A Hierarchical Analysis of Student and Word Factors

Abstract

Previous research indicates that morphological information imbedded in words facilitates various literacy skills, however there is still some disagreement as to whether skilled readers are more sensitive to morphological information while reading than their less skilled peers. This study examines whether qualities of words interact with qualities of students (n = 273) in a way that explains the disagreement between previous studies. A Hierarchical Linear Modelling (HLM) approach allows for examination of cross-level interactions between students and the words that they read in a lexical decision priming task. The results demonstrate that more skilled readers are more morphologically sensitive while reading words than their less skilled peers, but only after accounting for qualities of the words.