Investigating Predictors of Listening Comprehension in Third-, Seventh-, and Tenth-Grade Students: A Dominance Analysis Approach

This study rank ordered the contributive importance of several predictors of listening comprehension for third, seventh, and tenth graders. Principal components analyses revealed that a three-factor solution with fluency, reasoning, and working memory components provided the best fit across grade levels. Dominance analyses indicated that fluency and reasoning were the strongest predictors of third-grade listening comprehension. Reasoning emerged as the strongest predictor of seventh- and tenth-grade listening comprehension. These findings suggest a shift in the contributive importance of predictors to listening comprehension across development (i.e., grade levels). The implications of our findings for educators and researchers are discussed.