Context Clues Are Unreliable Predictors of Word Meanings

Author(s): Elinore Kress Schatz and R. Scott Baldwin

Source: Reading Research Quarterly, Vol. 21, No. 4 (Autumn, 1986), pp. 439-453
Published by: International Reading Association
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/747615
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Contextclues are unreliable wordmeanings
predictorsof
ELINOREKRESSSCHATZ
GreaterMiami HebrewAcademy
R. SCOTTBALDWIN
Miami
Universityof
THREE STUDIES were conductedto determinethe extent to which context helps studentsinfer the meanings
of unknownwords. In Experiment 1, studentsin Grades 10 and 11 were ran- domly assigned to either a
context or a no-contextcondition. The no-contextgroup read low- frequency words in isolation. The
context group read the same words embedded in passages taken from novels. Experiment 2 was a
repeated-measuresstudy in which 39 students in Grade 11 read sets of words in isolation and also in
passages takenfrom four differentcontent
areas. 3 was a of 1 in which
Experiment systematic replication Experiment subjects were requiredto
in a
write definitions for the low-frequencywords instead of choosing the definitions multiple-choice
format. In none of the three was there
experiments any statisticallysig-nificant effect due to the context:
=
t(99) = .552, p > .10; F(1, 38) = .227, p > .10; and t(83) -.29, p > .10, respectively.The conclusion is
drawnthat instructionalstrategiesthat prioritize context clues should be reexamined.

aider les
On ne peut se fier aux indices contextuelspour prddirele sens des mots
ONA MENEtrois enqu tes en vue de determiner le contexte
' attribuerune aux mots inconnus. Dans la des
jusqu'aquel point pouvait

e61ves signification premiere experience,

el6ves de dixieme et onzieme ann6es ont 6te soumis au hasardh l'une de ces situations:avec
contexte, sans contexte. Le groupe dans la situationsans contextea lu une liste de mots isol6s
peu frequents. L'autregroupe, avec contexte, a pu lire les memes mots, pr6sent6sdans des extraitsde romans. La
deuxieme experience consistait en une evaluationrep6titiveet s'effec-tuait sur un groupe de 39 e61vesde onzieme
ann6e ouiceux-ci devaientlire une serie de mots
dans des sur La
pr6sent6sisol6ment puis passages portant quatresujets diff6rents. troisi&me
une de la dans les devaient
experience 6tait reprise syst6matique premiere laquelle sujets donner une definition aux
mots peu frequentsplut6t que d'en trouverune a partird'un choix
multiple. On n'a remarqu6aucun effet considerable statistiquement,attribuableau contexte
dans l'une ou l'autredes trois experiences. On en tire donc la conclusion que les strat6gies
les indices contextuelsmeritent examinees a
d'enseignementprivil6giant d'etre nouveau.
Las claves de
contextoson predictorespoco confiables del significado
las
de palabras
SELLEVARON estudiantesa
acabo tres estudios para determinarhasta que punto el contexto ayuda a los
inferir de los 10 11
significados de palabrasdesconocidas. En el experimento 1, estudiantes grados y fueron
asignados al azar, ya fuera, a una condici6n de contexto o a otra
de no contexto. El de
grupo no contexto ley6 palabrasaisladas de baja frecuencia. El grupo
de contexto las mento 2 fue
ley6 mismas palabrasembebidas en pasajes tomados de novelas. El experi-
un de
estudio de medidas repetidasen el que 39 estudiantesdel grado 11 leyeron conjuntos palabras,
aisladas y tambien en pasajes tomados de cuatro areas de contenido
diferentes.El experimento3 fue una replica sistemitica del experimento1 en el que se pidi6 a los sujetos que
escribierandefiniciones para las palabrasde baja frecuencia en vez de que
las definiciones en
escogieran un formato de opci6n multiple. En ninguno de los 3 experi-
mentos se encontr6 efecto estadisticamente debido al contexto. La con-
obtenida es las
ningdin significativo

clusi6n que estrategias de instrucci6n que dan prioridad a las claves de contexto deben
ser reexaminadas.

439
 sind als von
Zusammenhangs-Anhaltspunkte unzuverliflig Voraussagen
Wortbedeutungen
ESWURDENdrei Studien inwieweit den
beim
durchgeffihrt,um festzulegen, Zusammenhinge

unbekannterWortebehilflichsind.InExperiment 1 wurden
in und
Schiilern Verstindnis Schii-
ler im 10. und11.
versetzt.Die
Schuljahrwahllos Zusammenhangs- Nicht-Zusammenhangs-Lag

las nicht vorkommendeWorteverein-

zelt. Die
Nicht-Zusammenhangs-Gruppe hdiufig

las dieselbenWorteals zu Abschnittenin Ro-

in
Zusammenhangs-Gruppe zugehorig

manen.In Experiment
2 wurdeeine WiederholungsmaBnahmen-Studievorgenommen,

39 im 11. einzelnund auchals Ab-

Nach-
welcher Schiiler SchuljahrWortzusammenstellungen

schnitteaus verschiedenartigen
Bereichenlasen. 3 wareine
Experiment systematische

in welcherdie zu findenffir
seltenvorkommende anstattdie in Art eines Vielwahl-Formatesauszu-
bildung, Versuchspersonenangehaltenwurden,Erklirungen

Worte, Erklirungen

In keinemderdrei beobachtetemaneinenstatistisch
wihlen. Experimente bedeutungsvollen

EinfluB,
der auf den Zusammenhangzuruickzufiihren Darausist die SchluBfolgerung
zu siehen, daB die sich auf Zusammenhangs-Anhaltspunk
ware.

Unterrichtungs-Methoden,

berufen, untersuchtwerden sollten.

sorgf'iltig
To-
Based on an inspectionof instructionalma- and only then, consult a dictionary"(p. 86).
terials and reading methods texts, the positive
day, almost eight decades after the publication
value of context clues appears to be an almost of classic text teach-
Huey's (1908), publishers,
in the field of We ers, and the authors of reading methods text-
unquestionedassumption reading. books have the same of
will in this that the essentially perception
argue manuscript utility of
context as an efficient mechanism for inferring
traditional context clues, such as synonym clues and word
comparison and contrast clues, has been vastly meanings.
overestimated. Moreover, the results of our
researchdemonstratethat context Research on Context Clues
does not clues to the
usually provide meanings of low- The literature is replete with empirical studies
that context clues
frequencywords, and actually inhibit the that demonstratethe facilitating effects of context on
correct prediction of word meaningsjust as often as they word recognition - that is, the identification of a word
facilitatethem. that is unfamiliar in
The idea that the use of context clues is an
effective for word is print but is in the reader's oral vocabulary (Stanovich
strategy inferring meanings a &
The West, 1981; West, Stanovich,
venerable one (e.g., Barnum, 1906; Huey, 1908). Feeman, & Cunningham,1983-1984). Most of the
current status of in- studies investigating context facilitation at
pedagogical structionin use of the level seem to deal with the

context clues as a method of word-recognition

and as a tion in
vocabulary acquisition word-recogni- following topics: words in context versus words
is one of isolation (Biemiller, 1977-1978; Goodman,
strategy profoundauthority(e.g., Durr, Le
1965; Samuels, 1970; Weaver,1977), good and
Pere, Pescosolido, Bean, & Glaser, 1983; Johnson &
Pearson, 1984). Moreover, publishers and authors of poor readers'use of context (Allington & Flem-
methods texts also view the use of context clues as an ing, 1978; Krieger, 1981; Perfetti, Goldman,&
effective Hogaboam, 1979; Schvaneveldt,Ackerman,&
for word Semlear, 1977), and the interactionof context with
strategy inferring meanings (e.g.,
Burns, Roe, & Ross, 1984; Niles, Deffen- word frequency(Allington, 1980; Pearson
& &
Three are
baugh, Hynes-Berry, Lamberg, Savage, 1983; Studt, 1975). key generalizations
Wiener & Bazerman, 1985). The stand- derived from such studies: (a) Readers recog-nize
ard the of context clues in
philosophy regarding priority
for semanti- words fasterin contextthanin isolation; (b) poor
any strategy identifying cally readers are not only able to use context, but benefit
unfamiliarwords is clearly stated by Nist (1985): "Try at least as much as good readers from context; and
context first, structure second, (c) context significantlyhelps readers pronounce
soundingit out third, and, if all else fails, then, high-frequency words, but

440 * Fall 1986 XXI/4

READINGRESEARCHQUARTERLY
 He dranka _of coffee.
has only a minimal effect in helping readers As _ as ice.
pronouncemore difficult, less frequentwords. Studies
of context clue strategiesin the area
Bringhimbackdeador
A recent theAMAhasshownthatchild
.
of instruction studyby
vocabulary (Crist & Petrone, abuseis likely to be a morefrequentcauseof
1977; Gipe, 1978-1979; Madison, Carroll, & deaththansuchdiseasesas leukemia,cysticfi-
Drum, 1982) typically attemptto show the ef- brosis,and dystrophy.
fects on of se-
vocabularyacquisition presenting
unknown words in These studies do show that readerscan infer the
mantically specifically selected
defining contexts, as in this example: meanings of words. However, the use of high-
The said the a frequency words in a cloze task means that the
judge lawyergave cogentargu-
mentbecauseshe her facts in a con-
words are unknownonly in the sense that they are
presented missing from the passage, and not in the sense that the
vincingway. meaning of the deleted word is unknown to the reader.
It appearsfrom these studies that the more con- The problem is that the results of studies using high-
text clues are providedin the form of direct def- frequency words have been extrapolatedto
or the situationswhere low-frequency words occur. The fact
initions, synonyms, precise descriptions, better
the students will be able to learn the that readers
can the of a
meanings of unknown words (Carnine, Ka-meenui, & guess meaning missing high-fre-quency
Coyle, 1983-1984; Carroll& Drum, 1983). In addition, if word in sentences such as (1) does not mean that they
context is reinforced by teacher-directedinstructionand word
can guess the meaning of a low-frequency
student repeti- which is unfamil-
tion of semantically iar, as in sentence (2).
definitions, then context effects operate
& &
maximally (Jenkins, Pany, Schreck, 1978; Pany (1) I likehamand for breakfast.
Jenkins, 1978). (2) Mike is a scurrilous person, and I
The value of context clues as part of a com-
also is the ma- of
have neverlikedhim.
prehensionstrategy supportedby jority
studies on this Not use of context
topic (Carroll& Drum, every study supports
&
1983; Crist Petrone, 1977; Duffelmeyer, 1984; clues as a sound strategyfor identifying seman-tically
Madison, Carroll, & Drum, 1982). unfamiliarwords. Looby (1939) studied
Readers word and
frequentlyencounterdifficult, unfamil-iar words, the question of children's comprehension of
such as intrepidand inveterate, dur-ing generic reading. a series of
to the current phrase meanings through objective and essay
According research literature, context tests. She also used the indi-vidual interviewfor an
clues should help affective evaluation. She
found that althoughcontext was widely used to determine
readersto infer the meanings of such words and thereby
facilitate without the the meanings of words and phrases, the responses on the
comprehension need for readers to of from
with diversions to tests indicateda full range interpretations- adequate
interrupt the reading act glossaries, understand- to Most
dictionaries, or other externalsources of information. ing gross misunderstanding. crucial
was the that the were
Most of the studies through the years sup-porting finding subjects very posi-tive in their
word own minds that their understand-
the facilitating effects of context on ings of word meanings were correct; however, they were as
use words in a certain they were correct when
comprehension high-frequency cloze-type
task (Carroll & Drum, 1982; these turned out to be wrong as
understandings
Quealy, 1969; Seibert, 1945). In these studies, words case
when they were right. This effect may be the general
when are to low-
are surrounded by highly constrained contexts which subjects exposed
words in
frequency naturallyoccurring prose, instead of in
considerablyreduce the number of possible word
contrived contexts that are largely
choices. The following senten-ces are typical of the redundantwith the word in question.
context conditions in these studies:

Context clues SCHATZ & BALDWIN 441

 and studies
Word-recognition vocabulary have every second of every third The
paragraph page.
shown context to have facilitatingeffects. However, with thus locatedwas selectedif it contained paragraph
respect to the identification of one or more low-frequency words. A low-fre-quencywordwas
of
meanings low-frequencywords, the research definedas a wordwhichappears
literatureis flawedbecausethe studieshaveevalu-
ated the effects ofor context with high- instead of low- insteadof four times or less in a million runningwords, as reportedin
frequencywords, they haveused contrived passages the Kuceraand Francis(1967) word
naturallyoccurringprose. The purposeof this studywas to list. The are of low-

discoverwhethercon-text clues help readersto identifythe meaningsof frequency following examples

wordsin wordswhich fit this criterionandthere-frequency
naturallyoccurringprose.
low-frequency fore were amongthe test items:

cozened recondite
EXPERIMENT1 salient
imperious
ignominiously cogently
inexorable
perambulating
If a
low-frequency word was not present in a paragraph or if a paragraph
Method contained more than three low-frequencywords, that
paragraph
Subjects was eliminated, and the next paragraph
was ex-
The sample consisted of 101 students in Grades 10 and amined.
This 256
11. The 53 10th-gradeand 48 11th-gradestudents were proceduregenerated paragraphs.
enrolled in a private school in Fort Lauderdale,Florida, Fromthis item pool, 25 were selected paragraphs
dents were middle- to
whose stu- mainly using a table of randomnumbers.The following
upper-middle-class
and Caucasian. Their mean verbal is an of a used in this study:
scores on the Scholastic example paragraph
percentile Preliminary
Aptitude Test in October were 45.88 for the 10th- He thanksthe simplewoman,andtellsherto go
class and 65.87 for the well. He standsfor a moment,thenturns swiftly
grade 11th-grade class.
andgoes to his room.He takesout an envelope froma
drawer,andtakespapermoneyfromit.
Materials
Two 25-item tests, a words-in-contexttest and a He looks at it and thenwith decision
words-in-isolationtest, were designed to assess the ruefully,
putsit intohis pocket,withdecisiontakesdown his
extentto which contexthelps students hat. Thendressed,withindecisionlooksout of
thewindowto thehouseof Mrs.Lithebe,and
infer the meanings of unknownwords. The test items were shakeshis head. But he is too late, for as he
field-tested on a group of college-bound 10th-grade students
in order to deter- openshis door,Kumalostandsbeforehim. (Pa-
mine the extent of the ton, Cry,theBelovedCountry,p. 81).
subjects'prior knowledge of the
targetwords. The effects of contextwould the
be obscuredif studentsalreadyknew the defini-tions of most The first low-frequency word to occur in
of these words. Therefore, any became the target word and was
paragraph

test item that was defined correctly by 65 % or more of underlined. After the target word was identi-fied, a
the studentswas discarded. structedfrom it
The words-in-contexttest consistedof 25 pas-sages three-sentence test passage was con-
the
selected from 10 novels from the school's using following procedures: If the target word
occurredin the first sentence
reading lists for 10th- and students of the then that sentence became the
11lth-grade
(e.g., Grapesof Wrath,Cry,the BelovedCountry, paragraph,
first one in the passage, followed by the next two sentences as they
The Scarlet Letter,and The Pearl). Sample pas- appeared in the para-graph.
If the
low-frequency target word ap-
sages were selectedfrom each book by choosing peared at the end of the paragraph,
then the two
sentences preceding it were used to form a

*
442 READING RESEARCHQUARTERLY Fall 1986 XXI/4
 (1) Words-in-isolationtest. Find the definition
three-sentence passage. If the target word ap- thatis mostsimilarto or closestin meaningto the
else in the then the CAPITALIZEDword.Use the answersheet
pearedanywhere paragraph,
to record answersAnswer.all 25 items.If
sentence that preceded the one containing the low- you do notknowan then Use the
your

frequency word, the sentence containing the low-

answer, guess.

answersheetto record answers.

frequency word, and the sentence that followed the your

target word constituted the three-sentence passage. (2) Words-in-contexttest. Eachof the passages
In four cases, a paragraph belowcontainsan underlinedword.Afterread-
comprised two lengthy sentences, one of which ing each passage,find the definitionof the un-
contained the target low-frequency word. In those derlinedwordthatis mostsimilaror closestin
to it fromone of the five

instances the entire two-sentence para-

meaning by choosing
letteredalternativeswhichfolloweachpassage. Answerall 25
served as the test items.If you do not knowan an-
graph passage. Passages
swer,thenguess.Use theanswersheetto record youranswers.
ranged in size from 22 words to 134 words, with a
mean of 65 words. In light of recent re-search on the
Procedure
capacity of cloze to measureinter- We
randomlyassigned test booklets to sub-
sentential
comprehension(Shanahan,Kamil, & Tobin, 1981- jects. The filled in NCS
subjects
an-
trans-optic
this swer sheets, which requiredthem to "bubblein" (i.e.,
1982), we considered passage size sufficient to give
context a reasonable blackenthe circles in orderto record)their answers. The
10-15 minutes
chance to revealthe meaning of the targetword. After words-in-isolationtest requiredap-proximately
for and
each targetword had been underlined and the passages completion,
the words-in-contexttest took 30-

had been constructed, pas-sages were then randomly approximately

40 minutesfor completion.We told the studentsto read the
ordered. For the words-in-contexttest, the target word
items in a format were instructionsand proceed with the task. The studentswere
and five multiple-choice typed also told that
beneath each passage. Of the five choices, one was a they would finish at differenttimes because they
same word were doing differ-ent tasks. As the studentsfinished,they
synonym, and the other four were of the turnedin their test booklets and answer sheets and were
level and of a or
frequency part speech as the synonym. An given reading writingassignmentprovidedby
example of a test item fol- theirteachers.All studentsfinishedin the allotted
lows: time.
He takes out an envelopefrom a drawer,and
takes paper money from it. He looks at it
ruefully,
andthen withdecision

puts
it into his
Results
pocket,withdecisiontakesdownhis hat. Then
For the combined groups, the mean per-
dressed,with indecisionlooks out of the win-
dow to the house of Mrs. Lithebe,and centage correct was 35.8. A t test for indepen-
shakes his head.
dent observations was used to compare the mean
RUEFULLY scores on the words-in-isolationtest and
(A) sorrowfully the words-in-contexttest. There was no statisti-
(B)thankfully cally significant difference between the means of the
(C)fearfully no-contextgroup (M = 9.14, SD = 2.08) and of the
(D)casually t =
(E)longingly context group (M = 8.76, SD = 3.72), (99) .552, p
> .10. The test for
of variance was A
The words-in-isolationtest was identical to homogeneity nonsignificant.
hoc
the words-in-context test except that the pas-sages post power analysis was also performed. The results of
in-isolation this analysis indicated that with
were not included. In effect, the words-
test was a test.
simply multiple-choice vocabulary
The tests were placed in booklets which in-cluded the
following sets of instructions:
Context clues SCHATZ& BALDWIN 443
50 subjects per cell, there was an 89% chance EXPERIMENT2
of finding an effect large enough to account for 6%
of the variance in test performance. Method
Subjects
Discussion The sample consisted of 39 students in Grade 11
from a privateschool in Miami, Flor-ida. The students
middle- to
The absence of came from a predominately upper-middle-
any statistically significant The Scholastic
difference between the scores on the words-in- classbackground. average Preliminary
Test
context test and on the words-in-isolationtest Aptitude verbal percentile score for this sample in
Octo-ber was 57.6.
suggests that studentseither could not or chose not to use
context to infer the meanings of un-known words. Prior to Materials
most
this study, which used naturallyoccurringprose, As in Experiment1, two testsweredevisedto
research show-
ing the effectiveness of context used passages determinethe effects of context.However,in this
test and words were
which were specifically designed to enhancethe effects of experiment, passages target
context or to control for certain con- chosen from four contentareas in orderto deter-
mine whetherthe effectsof contextare differentin
textual factors such as form and proximity (Carnine,
& differentcontentareas. Passagesand targetwords
Kameenui, Coyle, 1983-1984; were identified the same detailedfor

Crist & Petrone, 1977; Gipe, 1980; Madison, by procedure

1. the science
Carroll, & Drum, 1982). Given that reading Experiment Typically, passages
contained words
materialsin the world outside the classroom are many low-frequency per para-graph.
Because of the high density of these low-
not artificially contrived to suggest the mean-ings of of
unfamiliar words, the results of the frequencytechnicalwords, we did not apply the stipulation
to one to three words
above-cited studies have questionable applica-bility only low-frequency per paragraph(as
materialsfrom occur- listed for to science
reading naturally Experiment1) paragraphs.
ring prose. Literature passages were taken from the same
Nagy, Herman, and Anderson (1984-1985) novels that were used in Experiment1. In addition,
cite two other limitations of previous studies which result in passages were taken from popular
inflated context effects: (a) the and
reading (magazines newspapers), history textbooks,
promptingof studentsto devise word meanings and science textbooks (biology and physics). Fifteen
from context, and (b) asking studentsto supply
passages from each of the four content areas were
a new label for a familiar concept, as opposed to the more in
sampled, using the same procedureas Experiment 1,
difficult task of supplyinga new la-bel for a new concept. In items. The are of the
for a total of 60 following examples
spite of the fact that both of these circumstancesthat were pas-sages for each of these content areas:
expected to inflate context effects occurred in Experi-ment
1, no such effects were found. Newspapers
Because this experiment was restricted to The viewers,to theirdelight,will discovera glib,
in
naturallyoccurringprose fiction, it could be argued that articulatemanwho mightotherwisere-
main if he were not the
context is ineffective only in this anonymous dominating
2 was de- to the he has
particularliterarygenre. Experiment signed Superstarscompetition way dominatedthe
increase the of the
generalizability javelin throwthis past year.
and to serve as a (MiamiHerald)
findings systematicreplication
of 1.
Experiment

444 * Fall 1986 XXI/4

READINGRESEARCHQUARTERLY
 Magazines
considered appropriate to counterbalance the
No one would deny the pragmaticadvan- test items by including the words-in-isolation
tages,bothculturalandcivic, of suchartsdis-

tricts. Atlanta'sMidtownBusinessAssocia- test items with the words-in-contexttest items.

tion of real estateinterestsand businessmen Carroll and Drum (1983) noted the interference
out that4 millionvisitorsflock to the effect of context when they expressed concern
to attendarts-relatedevents.
points

districteach that even minimally explicit context clues could

"Theartsare up on a level now with facilitate word definition. Therefore, all stu-
year

religion

and education,"says associationpresident dents took the words-in-isolationtest first. All

HiramWilkinson. (Newsweek)
students were able to finish the words-in-isola-
History
textbooks tion test within one 45-minute class period.
Just aboutthe time when the Allied troops We administeredthe words-in-contexttest
from the Nazi
were liberatingEurope yoke, over a period of 2 days: 40 items were given on
Americanforces were routingthe Japanese the first and 20 items on the sec-
from their Pacific administration,
captured possessions.By
of 2 to eliminate and
ond administration.Testing was divided over a

the end of February,1945, the Philippines

wereliberated GeneralMacArthur. period days subjectfatigue
by
to ensure that each subject would have enough
Sciencetextbooks
time to complete the test. Students were not
Likeworms,molluskshavethreecell layers. able to complete more than 40 items on the first
the booklets were
A coelomis the of

membersof this of animalsis dif-

present.However, anatomy

testing session, as test taped

closed after Item 40 to insure that the students
group quite

ferent.Onthebasisof bothinternalandexter-
nal adultmollusksdo not seemto be did not look ahead at the words for the follow-
featu res,

closelyrelatedto annelids. ing day. As the students finished the test, they
The words-in-isolationtest consisted of the turned in their test booklets and answer sheets
to us and were a or as-
given reading writing
same 60 words as the words-in-contexttest. The signment by their teacher. All tests were given
instructionswere written at the top of both the in March of the school year.
words-in-isolationand the words-in-contexttest
booklets and were wordedthe same as in Exper-
iment 1. Results

Table 1 shows the cell means and standard

deviations for the scores on the words-in-isola-
tion test and the words-in-contexttest. The data
were a2x4 x treat-
analyzed using (treatments ments x
subjects) design; the two factors were

Table1 Means and standarddeviationsfor two context conditions across four subject areas
Condition M SD
Newspapers/ Isolated 5.89 2.56
Context Literature Magazines
Passages 6.05 2.60 5.43 2.55
Mean 5.97 5.52 History Science
Note.Maximumscore was 15foreach area. Textbooks Textbooks
possible subject M SD M SD
7.05 3.07 6.15 2.35

7.05 2.81 5.74 2.83

7.05 5.94

Contextclues SCHATZ & BALDWIN 445

context condition or and
(isolation passage) EXPERIMENT3
content area and
(novels, magazines newspa-
pers, history textbooks, or science textbooks). The
criterion variable was the number of cor-
Method
rect choices on the vocabularytest.
An of variance was on
analysis performed the total Subjects
No
number of correct responses for each subject. The 84 students in
difference sample comprised
statistically significant was found between Grades 10 and 11 from a private Hebrew day
scores on the words-in-iso- school in Miami Beach, Florida.
lation test and on the words-in-contexttest, F(1,
38) = .227, p > .10. No interactionwas found Materials
to be A ef- The materialsused in this experimentwere identical
significant. statistically significant fect was
= < d = .04. to the materials in Experiment 1 ex-cept for the
found for type of text, F(3, 114) 7.94, p .001,
Students vocabularytest. Instead of taking a
apparently knew more words from the history were
multiple-choice test, all subjects simply asked
textbooks used in this experimentthan from the other
con-tent area textbooks. As in Experiment 1, the sample to write out a definition for each target word.
means for the isolation conditions are higher than the
context means. Procedures
The procedureswere identical to those for
with the
Experiment 1 following exceptions:
Discussion Student answer sheets were unmarkedwith re-
spect to treatmentgroup. The context and no-
context answer sheets were placed in folders
The absence of significant difference be-
marked simply A and B. Both of us then judged
tween the scores on the words-in-context test
the adequacyof the definitionsin a double blind
and on the words-in-isolation test across four
procedure: Neither of us knew the scores as-
different content areas suggests that context is an ineffective the
students infer the signed by other, and we did not know
or little-used strategy for helping
of whether we were scoring the context or the no-
meanings low-frequency words. The fact that these low-
context condition. Because we were
frequencywords interested
came from a of
greater diversity passage types only in full denotative meanings or accurate synonyms,
than in Experiment 1 gives this experiment- all items were scored as either right or wrong. This
The
greater generalizability. only statistically significant context
words approachhas been used in other studies (e.g.,
finding was that studentsknew more low-frequency Carroll & Drum, 1982).
from the
history passages than from the other three content The interraterreliabilitywas .91.
areas.
Both Experiment1 and Experiment2 relied on
the use of multiple-choice tests of word meaning.
Because in the tests we Resultsand Discussion
constructing had selected
distractors in a nonrandomman- For the combined groups, the mean per-centage
ner, it seemed possible that we had inadver- tently correct was 14. A t test for independent samples was
biased the outcome of both studies in favor of the no-
used to compare the mean scores of the context and no-
context group. Experiment 3 there was no
context groups. Again statistically
was a of difference
systematic replication Experiment 1 to designed significant between the means of the no-
eliminate possible bias in the crite-rion measure. context group (M
=
=
3.36, SD 2.95) and the context group (M
= =
=
3.53, SD 2.70), t(83) -.29, p > .10, d

446 * Fall 1986 XXI/4

READINGRESEARCHQUARTERLY
= .06. This outcome reconfirms the results of tion test for low-frequencywords selected from five
Experiments 1 and 2 and suggests that the mul-
major subject areas. There were 20 target words
tiple-choice formatdid not bias the results. and 40 distractors. Subjects were asked to (a) circle
YESor NO to indicate whether or
not they knew the word, and (b) write a defini-tion for
Drum's
GENERALDISCUSSION the word. Definitions were scored using (1982)
of word Two
A standard strategy given to students for eight-level hierarchy
later, the experimental group read the same words
knowledge. weeks

the of unknown words

determining meanings embedded in pas-sages that offered explicit context
has been to use the context to infer

surrounding clues. A con-trol group read a modified version of the

This has been
meaning. strategy perpetuated from which clues for
passages providedonly implicit the target
Artley (1943) to Carnine, Kameenui, and
one of the words.
Coyle (1983-1984). Probably major reasons for Carroll and Drum found that the group re-ceiving
this perpetuationhas been that re-searchers have used explicit context clues wrote better defi-nitions for the
who received
contrived or unrepresenta-tive passages on which to target words than the control subjects,
context
base their conclusions about context. only implicit clues. They also found that both the
An of the use of con-
outstandingexample trived experimen-tal and the control groups performed better
the than on the In the
passages to demonstratethe effectiveness of context can on posttest pretest. general, study
evidence that can
be found in Duffelmeyer'sstudy (1984). Duffelmeyer presents good people use context clues
modified the words.
vocabulary subtest of the Gates- to identify the meanings of low-frequency
MacGinitieReading Tests, Level E, by replacingeach However, the study begs the more salient questions
isolated target word with a context-richsentence. Here is
an exam- concerning the relia-bility of context clues:
ple (p. 105):
1. Do traditionalcontextclues occurwith
Whenyou are driving,be carefulnot to exceed
suf-
the speedlimit. ficient to
frequency
themas a major justify

A. go beyond elementof instruction?

B. do well 2. Does context
reading
accurateclues
C. proceed usuallyprovide
D. stumble to the denotationsand connotationsof low-
E. approve words?

frequency
In
additionto constructingcontrived sentences, Duffelmeyer
made the distractors Carroll and Drum and others have failed to come
apparently
syntactically
as well as
semantically inappro- to grips with these questions by not ran-
It is that words from a
priate. hardly surprising Duffelmeyer's context domly selecting low-frequency variety of texts
and then measuringthe extentto which context facilitatesthe
group performedmuch better than sub-jects who took the
acquisitionof word
vocabularytest without the benefit of any sentence In
context. meaning. non-contrived,naturallyoccurring prose
context clues be an
Carroll and Drum (1983) used more natu-ral prose in passages, using may unreliable
the form of high school textbooksto investigate the effects of means of inferring word meanings (Beck, McKeown, &
"explicit" and "im-plicit" context clues on the acquisition of
McCaslin, 1983). The real issue is not whether or not
clues offer more or less childrencan use
word meaning. Explicit pre-cise context clues, but whetheror not difficult words
definitions to the reader, whereas implicit clues do not in are amena-
naturallyoccurringprose usually ble to such
provide any type of definition. All subjects were given a 60- analysis.
item words-in-isola- Nagy, Herman, and Anderson (1984-1985) seem
to have come the closest to approximating the normal
readingsituationwhile investigating

Context clues SCHATZ & BALDWIN 447

the issue of the effects of context on word mean- ing of dearth. Here, the low-frequencysuch
target word
words as
used words em- dearth receives contextual support from
ing. They low-frequencytarget bedded and
and found a poor, few, pennies, skimped, all of which are
in passages taken from junior high texts
min- associated with scarcity, the synonym for dearth.
statistically significant-but ute- effect for context in low-fre- word
both narrativeand ex- Likewise, the quency ameliorating (Item
it would finds its contextual such
pository prose. Superficially, appear that the 20) support through positive
con-
results of their experimentare in direct contrast to
the results of ours. However, be- words as
noting strength, security, civilizing,
cause their design was very powerful, it was possible to find steadily, climax, triumph,and united.
an extremely small effect. Our
their In is the outcomeof sets a
experimentsactually replicate findings. both the Strength

on feeblenessThe.workof ameliorat-
need;security

premium
true
study by Nagy et. al. and our study,the measuresof ing the conditionsof life-the civilizing
associationwere extremely small- -
of processthatmakeslife moreandmoresecure

that is, for any given instance, the probability had on to a climax.One
a word was low. of a united
gone steadily triumph
overNaturehad followed
identifying low-frequency very In humanity
another study, Gough, Alford, and Holley- another.
Wilcox found that the of
(1981) predictability content AMELIORATING
words in sentences taken from articles
(A) investigating
in Reader'sDigest was only .10. (B)improving
It may be that on some occasions, context will (C)reporting
reveal the meaning of an unknown word. However, as (D) revolutionizing
will (E)financing
Looby (1939) noted, as often as not, context suggest
a the author effects of con-
meaning did not intend, and the readerhas In contrast,the confounding text can
be seen in the results of Item 3: Every subject in the
no good way of verifying that meaning without
recourse to externalreferences. context group selected one of the wrong answers. Here,
Item 2 from Experiment 1 (see Table 2) the target word waning receives little or no supportfrom
the surround-ing context. In fact, phrasessuch as
providesan example of the facilitativeeffects "the
waning moon arose"and "it came up" suggest the
of context: of a which the au-
con-cept enlargement, meaning thor
True,the same before.Without
thinghappened clearly does not intend. Stylistically, the
aftera long seasonof dearth,threeor warning, author the idea of the
fourcustomers,lost faces, in one
juxtaposed anticipated prominenceof
straggled day, the moon with its currentstate of

witha few
as if they hadbeen let out of theirpoor rooms
in their Andothers
inconspicuousness.
pennies pockets.
whohadskimpedon food, beganto buymore. The windcriedand whiskedin the brush,and
DEARTH the family went on hour after monotonously,

(A)robberies hour.Theypassedno one and saw no one. At

(B)scarcity last, to their the moon and
right, waning arose,

(C) doubt when it cameup the winddied down,andthe

(D)predicaments landwasstill.
(E)bloodshed WANING
of the in the con- (A)picturesque
Seventy-six percent subjects text (B)brilliant
group chose the correct answer, scarcity, whereas
(C) conspicuous
only 47 % of the no-context group se-lected the (D)diminishing
correct answer. A test for differences (E)everlasting
between two proportions (Bruning & Kintz, 1977)
indicateda differ-
statisticallysignificant Table 2 shows 12 pairs of proportions of
ence
between the two groups. This suggests that items correct that are different for the two
context did help students to identify the mean-

448 READING RESEARCHQUARTERLY * Fall 1986

XXI/4
Table2
Proportionsof correct responses and tests for differences between proportionsin
Experiment 1
Condition

Item Context No-Context z value

1 .76 .29 4.70***

2 .76 .47 2.99**

3 .00 .18 -3.33***
4 .24 .59 -3.54***
5 .44 .55 -1.10
6 .06 .37 -3.78***
7 .44 .63 -1.90*
8 .34 .31 .32
9 .28 .51 -2.35**
10 .26 .55 -2.96**
11 .46 .51 - .50
12 .24 .39 -1.62
13 .16 .16 .00
14 .44 .20 2.58**
15 .44 .02 5.00***
16 .12 .10 .32
17 .46 .61 -1.50
18 .52 .41 1.10
19 .50 .25 2.58**
20 .74 .39 - 3.54***
21 .08 .10 .35
22 .58 .53 .51
23 .56 .55 .10
24 .36 .31 - .53
25 .14 .16 .28
> ***z > 3.30,
*z 1.65, p < .10 **z > 1.96, p < .05 p < .01

ing context clues, the context groups in these

groups at traditionallevels of statistical signifi- have better. We
In experiments might performed
cance. 6 cases, the context group outper-formed the
no-context group; the reverse was true for the other 6 think such a result would be unlikely because
of the
items. Given this population low-frequencywords, subjects were normal, fairly sophisticated senior high
of school students. If students don't
context was facilitating 24% the time, but also had a have
confoundingef-fect 24% of the time. These results are contextualskills by this point in time, they probablyare
consist- not going to get them at all.
ent with Looby's (1939) observation that context often It is also possible to criticize the experi-
ments on the that the
provides misleading information about the meanings of grounds linguistic sample was
unknown words. Until someone can demonstrate that
context works small. A larger sample of words would cer-tainly be
desirable. However,70 items drawnat random from five
better than this with larger samples than ours of
different types of naturally
randomly selected words from naturallyoccur-ring offer a and
we to be a little more occurring prose passages larger more
prose, ought guarded about class
word representativesample than most studies of context clues
time spent teaching children to guess meanings. (for example, Carroll and Drum, 1983, used 20
There are, of course, potential limitations in this targetwords).
series of experiments. First, we did not
control for the subjects' formal knowledge of how to use Why Do Context Clues
contextclues. It is possible that if the Work- Sometimes?
to Finn some
had been in us- According (1977-1978),
subjects given adequatetraining
words are easy to supply in a cloze task,
449
Context clues SCHATZ & BALDWIN
 whereas others are more difficult or impossible meaning
of a low-frequency
word is unity
when the wordand its context
to supply in such a task. In like fashion, some surrounding

words are critical to the context, whereas others shareall transferfeatures,i.e.,

whentheword
are redundant. Finn's transfer feature theory is a semanticsubsetof or is redun-
cloze dantwithits
completely

(1977-1978) explains why words that are difficult to surrounding

context (see Figure

supply are also the most critical con- 1, SituationB).

Rule3: vC = 1/pC
tributorsto the meaningof the con- Thevalueof a contextclueas anaidto compre-
surrounding hensionis inverselyproportional
to its proba-
text. This in bility of identifying the meaning of
relationship, turn, providesa sound the
rent low-frequency
word-that thereis a perfect is,
theoreticalexplanationfor the resultsof the cur- negativecorrelationbetweenthe applicability of a
study. contextclue andits functionalvalueas a
Finn used Bormuth's
(1977-1978) original data readingstrategy(See.Figure1, Situation C).

(1966) from five alternateforms of fifth-word- Where

deletioncloze tests. These cloze tests had
pC = of using contextto identify
been administeredto 675 subjects in Grades 4 through 8.
probability

the meaning
of a low-frequency
word
Finn reanalyzed this data base of y = all semanticfeaturesof the contextsur-
5,185 words accordingto a variety of linguistic variables a
word rounding low-frequency
such as cloze easiness (the percentage of correct cloze x = all semanticfeaturesof a low-frequency word
responses) and standard fre-quency index (SFI) of the vC = valueof a contextclueas a
was run facilitatorof comprehension
cloze words. A multi-ple-regression analysis
with cloze
easiness as the dependentvariable, and SFI as
1
one of three independentvariables. Figure
Finn's transfer feature theory suggests an Transferfeaturerelationshipsbetween
words and contexts

inverse relationshipbetween the amount of in- low-frequency surrounding

formationa word carries and cloze easiness. If
a word is it contains
high-information, many lexical SITUATION
markersthat give informationabout it-
self, but there are few clues to its identity that can be
gatheredfrom the words aroundit-that is, the context Y X
provides little transfer feature
support. Therefore, if a word is high-informa-
tion, it has low cloze easiness-it would be dif- him rule the
Rasputin's necromancy allowed to kingdom.
ficult to fill in on a cloze exercise. In contrast,a
word would be easy to fill in on SITUATIONB
low-information

a cloze exercise. Y
Using context to guess the meaning of a se-
unfamiliar word is the
mantically essentially same as
supplying the correct meaning in a cloze task. The
following calculus was derived from Finn'scloze rules to or
illustratethe basic re- Necromancy, sorcery, was once punishable by death.
between context and the information
lationship
content of words. SITUATIONC

the
Rule1:pC = 0 whenx fl y
The thatcontextwill
of a word is zero
probability identify

meaning low-frequency
when the wordand its context
Situa-
surrounding

shareno transferfeatures Merlin's necromancy allowed him to rule the kingdom.

tionA). (see Figure1,
Rule2: pC = 1 whenx E y
The probabilitythatcontextwill identifythe
450 READING RESEARCHQUARTERLY * Fall 1986 XXI/4
 In SituationA, there are virtually no trans-fer the second sentence, dachshundcarries greater
featuresbetween necromancy(set X) and its
context The sets are informationthan dog, and the context clue will
surrounding (set Y). mutu-ally tell about the of the
something meaning word; this case is
exclusive. The meaning of the word would be extremely
tion cloze identical to Situation C in Figure 1 and corresponds to
difficult to predictin a cloze situa- (low Rule 3 in the calculus. In some cases a word will be
and its is
easiness), meaning critical to the meaning of partially predictable based on the context, but then the
amountof in-
the sentence-that is, it constrainsthe context by adding a
mation Our research formation it contributesto the passage will be
lot of infor- (high-information). less. The
correspondingly general implication is that context
sug-gests that this is the standard case for clues work well only when the
words in word in is in
low-frequency naturally occurring
prose. question relatively unimportant
to the
In SituationB all transferfeaturesof necro- adding meaning passage.
are included in its
mancy (set X) surrounding context (set Y).
of the word would be
Conclusions
Set X is inclusive in set Y. The meaning 1. In general,contextclues do not revealthe
to of wordsin oc-
quite easy pre-dict in a cloze situation (high cloze easiness), meanings low-frequency naturally

dictum that"con-
and its meaning is redundantto the meaning of the curringprose. Deighton's (1959)

sentence- that is, it fails to constrain the text alwaysdeterminesthe meaningsof a word, it
context Our research that this an overstate-

probably
does not alwaysrevealit"is

(low-information). sug-gests
case is rare in The ment. Contextclues do not workas often

relatively naturally occurring prose. probably

reason for this is When novelists and
rarity straightforward. as most readingeducatorsbelieve.
journal-
ists, for example, compose passages that con-tain 2. Contextclues appearto be just as likely to
so result in confusion as in the correct identifi-
low-frequency words, they do with a
cation of word meaning.
minimumof semantic It is difficult
3. Context clues work best when the target word
redundancy. is redundantwith the rest of the context
to or Faulkner a
imagine Hemingway using
low-frequency and contributes little new information to the
passage. Or, statedanotherway, the more infor-
word such as ambidextrous in the following manner:
mation the word contributesto the passage, the less
He is ambidextrousbecausehe uses bothhands
well. likely it is that context clues will work.
equally The most obvious
remaining question, then, is
One assumes that authors use low-frequency this: What strategy should students
words not for the purpose of teaching word adopt when they come to unknown words in their
mation or readingmaterials?Could studentsbe made
meanings, but for the purpose of adding infor- aware of the of the
the text. The importance using dictionary and/or
constraining following sentences serve to
glossary as a first step in the determina-tion of word
illustratethis concept:
meanings early in the upper ele-
That is an which this
Thedog waswalkedon the leash. mentary grades?
is worth
empirical question
study suggests pursuing.
Thedachshundwaswalkedon the leash. use is the last taken to the
Traditionally, dictionary step get
Thetoddlerwaswalkedon the leash. of a word. This
meaning low-frequency look-it-up-as-a-last-
be for word but
In the first sentence, dog is redundantbe- resortstrategy may appropriate recognition,
not for the of
cause it verifies but does not contribute to the comprehension high-information words
that are not in the reader'slexicon.
text. In the third sentence, toddler is almost to- A dictionary-and-glossary strategy might be stressed
and is critical to the
tally unpredictable yet meaning even more as students progress throughsecondaryschool and
of the sentence. Notice also that if you did not know come into contact with greaternumbersof
the meaning of toddler, you would semanticallyunfamiliar
almost certainly guess the wrong meaning. In

Contextclues SCHATZ & BALDWIN 451

 &
BECK, I.L., MCKEOWN, M.G., MCCASLIN, E.S. (1983). Vo-
words. For many studentsgraduatingfrom high
cabulary development: All contexts are not created equal.
school, magazines and newspaperswill consti-tute the ElementarySchool Journal, 83, 177-181.
BIEMILLER, A. (1977-1978). Relationships between oral
bulk of their reading.If the majorword-meaning reading rates for letters, words, and simple text in the
to students is to use of achievement. Research
strategy taught context clues, development reading Reading
these students may develop a Quarterly,13, 223-239.
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about the of

the In
they are likely to infer wrong meanings. addition, approach.Read-ing Research Quarterly,1,
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researchers importance knowledge 79-132.
to BRUNING, J.L., & KINTZ, B.L. hand-
readingcomprehension(Davis, 1968; Spear-ritt,
(1977). Computational

book of statistics (2nd ed.). Glenview, IL: Scott,

1972). For instance, Wittrock,Marks, and Doctorow Foresman.
&
(1975) showed that even so much as one BURNS, P.C., ROE, B.D.,
in schools
ROSS, E.P. (1984).
Boston:
Teaching
reading today'selementary (3rd ed.).
unknownword in a passage can cause a sen-tence or & G.
Houghton Mifflin. COYLE, (1983-1984). Uti-
even an entire passage to be incompre-hensible. CARNINE, D., KAMEENUI, E.,
lization of contextual information in determining the meanings of
When reading history and science text-books, unfamiliarwords. ReadingResearch Quar-
studentsmight be encouragedto use the text's terly, 19, 188-204.
word &
glossary. It seems that after a technical appears CARROLL,B., DRUM,P. (1982). The effects of contextclue
once is so
and defined, if it reap-pears, it does as a type and variations in content on the comprehensionof unknownwords.
In J. Niles & L.A. Harris (Eds.), New inquiries in reading research and
term that is undefined, yet is critical to the meaning instruction. Thirty-first yearbook of
the National
Reading
of the text. For exam-ple, studentscoming across the Conference(pp. 89-93). Rochester, NY: National ReadingConference.
Definitional gains for ex-
word lepton for the first time in their physics Harris
plicit and implicit context clues. In J. Niles & L.A.
textbooks may re-ceive a thorough definition of this Searches in
it (Eds.), for meaning reading/lan-guage
term. When students see again a few paragraphs and instruction. book the
processing Thirty-secondyear- of
later, however, this word will probably not be sup- National
ported by context clues, either intentionallyor Reading Conference (pp. 158-162). Rochester, NY:
otherwise. National Reading Confer-ence.
&
CRIST,R., PETRONE,J. (1977). Learning concepts from contexts
If one of the aims of reading instructionis and definitions. Journal of Reading Behavior,
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emphasizing reliance context clues, real-ity, may DAVIS,F.B. (1968). Research and comprehensionon
teach students to skip over unknown words or to infer read-ing. ReadingResearch Quarterly,3, 499-545.
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DEIGHTON, (1959). Vocabulary development in the class-
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We wish to thank the studentsand staff at Ransom-Ever-
ing skill and the identification of words in discourse
glades School in CoconutGrove,the PalmerSchool in Miami,
context. Memoryand Cognition, 7, 273-282.
theSchool in Fort Lauderdale,andthe GreaterMi-University
ami Hebrew in
Academy Miami Beach, Floridafor
in this
participat-ing study.
Context clues SCHATZ& BALDWIN 453