Elaborative Inferences in expository text comprehension: analysis and interpretation of university written production

Inferencias elaborativas en la comprensión de textos expositivos: análisis e interpretación de producciones escritas universitarias

Abstract

This article analyzes the nature and types of elaborative inferences generated by university students when interacting with an expository text about marine animals. From a qualitative, interpretive perspective, written productions from 158 students enrolled in Spanish language courses at a Dominican Republic university were examined. The data corpus was collected through an open-ended question instrument designed to activate different levels of inferential processing. Results reveal five dominant types of elaborative inferences: explanatory, associative, predictive, evaluative, and macrostructural, whose distribution varies according to the nature of the task. A response pattern is also identified that oscillates between literal text reproduction and genuine meaning construction, mediated by the student's level of prior knowledge and the openness of the question. The study provides empirical evidence on meaning-construction processes at the university level and offers concrete implications for reading comprehension instruction in higher education.