Are Confidence Ratings Test- or Trait-Driven? Individual Differences among High, Average, and Low Comprehenders in Fourth Grade

The aim of this study was to examine whether low, average, and high comprehenders (LC, AC, and HC, respectively) differed in their reading self-confidence and bias ratings, and whether confidence ratings were driven by reading ability or distributed evenly among diverse readers. Seventy fourth-graders with good decoding abilities were administered a battery of cognitive, linguistic, and self-evaluation measures. They were divided into high, average, and low comprehenders based on a measure of reading comprehension. The results demonstrated that compared to HC, LC exhibited over-confidence and low calibration scores. However, all three groups of readers showed a distribution of low, average, and high confidence ratings. Results support an interaction between test and trait in explaining confidence ratings and emphasize the importance of this interaction in reading comprehension theory and practice.