Academic self-efficacy and reading comprehension: the mediation role of reading strategies

Abstract

This study aimed to know mediation of variable reading comprehension strategies in the relationship of academic self-efficacy and the reading comprehension of university students. The design was explanatory, the sample consisted of 497 first-year students from the Communications and Systems Engineering careers of a public (153) and a private (344) university, and the instruments were used: Scale of Self-efficacy Specific to Academic Situations (EAPESA) (adapted by Dominguez, Villegas, Yauri, Mattos & Ramirez, 2012), Cloze test (González, 1998) and the  ReaderCEECOL Understanding Strategies Assessment Questionnaire. The results show that reading comprehension strategies completely mediate (79,9%) the association between academic self-efficacy and reading comprehension. In addition, it was found that women use reading comprehension strategies more frequently, Communications students use more comprehension strategies than their Systems Engineering peers and that students' level of reading comprehension is poor-bad.