Strategies Employed by Mexican Secondary School Students When Facing Unfamiliar Academic Vocabulary

Abstract

This article examines the strategies employed by Mexican secondary school students to understand unfamiliar academic vocabulary and the relationship between these strategies and their reading proficiency. Within the broader Latin American context—where low reading comprehension levels remain prevalent—the study focused on a sample of 40 first-year secondary students, categorized according to their reading level. Using two instruments, the research identified the vocabulary learning strategies used by students and assessed their effectiveness in deriving word meaning. Findings indicate that while students across reading levels use similar strategies, those with higher reading proficiency more frequently and effectively apply complex strategies such as contextual abstraction, retrieving textual information, rereading the text, and full morphological analysis. Morphological analysis proved to be the most effective strategy, provided students possessed the metalinguistic skills necessary to decompose and reconstruct word meaning from all morphemes. The study concludes that the successful use of vocabulary strategies is closely linked to students’ reading proficiency, and that reading comprehension and academic vocabulary knowledge are mutually reinforcing. These findings highlight the importance of explicitly teaching academic vocabulary in school settings as a means to enhance students’ reading performance.

1. Introduction

Reading comprehension is one of the main academic challenges faced by Latin American students. It is estimated that four out of five sixth-grade students in Latin American countries are unable to comprehend and interpret a text of moderate length (International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), 2022; Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 2023), while approximately half of 15-year-old students demonstrate difficulties in identifying the main ideas in a text and making inferences about its content (Lions & Peña, 2016; Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 2023). In the specific case of Mexico, the 2017 report in the area of Language and Communication by the Instituto Nacional para la Evaluación de la Educación (INEE) (2017) indicates that most 15-year-old students are only able to relate explicit information found in different sections of a text, as well as identify the general structure of an informative text. In turn, only 2 out of every 10 Mexican students who complete secondary education are able to locate and combine explicit and implicit information in texts while reading, as well as infer relationships between different sections of a text. Similarly, a study conducted by the Comisión Nacional para la Mejora Continua de la Educación (2023) confirms the reading comprehension difficulties faced by Mexican secondary students, reporting that they are only able to integrate information and make inferences from texts with an accuracy rate of 47.2%. More recently, the results of the 2022 PISA test (Cabadas & García Valenzuela, 2023) indicated that only 4 out of every 1000 students in Mexico are at advanced levels in reading comprehension, which means that the vast majority are only able to answer reading comprehension questions that require the most basic skills (see also Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 2023).

On the other hand, various studies have shown a direct relationship between reading comprehension and students’ knowledge and mastery of the vocabulary found in academic texts (Baumann, 2009; De Freitas et al., 2018; Nagy & Townsend, 2012; Stahl, 1999). In this regard, it has been proposed that schools should focus more on the teaching of academic vocabulary in order to improve students’ reading comprehension skills (Hess Zimmermann, 2019; Snow & Uccelli, 2009; Zwiers, 2008). However, schools and teachers often overlook academic vocabulary instruction due to the belief that it is acquired through practice and simply by progressing through the school system (Beck et al., 2008; Godínez & Alarcón, 2018). In the specific context of Latin American countries, there is limited research on how students learn new vocabulary and deal with unknown words in academic and school texts (see Armijos Uzho et al., 2023). For this reason, the present study aims to examine the strategies employed by students—specifically, first-year Mexican secondary school students—to access unfamiliar academic vocabulary in school-related texts. The goal is to shed light on which strategies are most effective for secondary-level students in deriving the meaning of unknown vocabulary, with the aim of informing the development of more effective instructional interventions for vocabulary teaching in schools.

2. Acquisition of Academic Vocabulary

The acquisition of academic language is one of the main challenges in linguistic development during the school years, as it involves highly complex linguistic, cognitive, psychological, and sociocultural skills (Hess Zimmermann, 2013; Nippold, 2016; Snow & Uccelli, 2009; Tolchinsky & Berman, 2023; Zwiers, 2008). It has been emphasized that it is essential to ensure that students have access to academic language, as it is a prerequisite for reading success and for gaining access to information (Snow & Uccelli, 2009). Nagy and Townsend (2012) define academic language as a specialized oral and written form of language that occurs in academic or school contexts and facilitates communication and thinking about disciplinary content. Therefore, according to the authors, it fosters a type of thinking that differs from that used in other social settings.

Academic language possesses distinct features that set it apart from other forms of language use. On the one hand, it carries a higher informational load, involves greater use of nominalizations, and includes hierarchically structured sentences in which a main clause contains subordinate clauses (Nagy & Townsend, 2012; Tolchinsky & Berman, 2023). On the other, it includes formal and figurative expressions used to describe more abstract concepts and relationships—forms that are uncommon in everyday social interactions (Snow & Uccelli, 2009; Zwiers, 2008). Additionally, in academic language, the speaker or writer remains detached and impartial in conveying the message. As a result, comprehension requires the listener or reader to be familiar with different textual genres since they not only need to decipher the complexity of the message but also understand the communicative context in which it appears. Another key feature of academic language is its specialized, technical, and abstract vocabulary (Hess Zimmermann, 2013; Nagy & Townsend, 2012; Snow & Uccelli, 2009; Zwiers, 2008). Due to these characteristics, academic language may be perceived by some students as a foreign language, as it contains a large proportion of unfamiliar words and expressions that are rarely encountered outside the school context (St. John & Vance, 2014).

Academic vocabulary, central to the present study, is understood as the set of words that allow for the description of complex and abstract ideas and concepts within academic contexts (Snow & Uccelli, 2009). It has been noted that beginning in fourth grade, students start encountering school texts that contain a significant amount of academic vocabulary (Nagy & Townsend, 2012; Tolchinsky & Berman, 2023). However, it is not until secondary education that the texts used in the school context have a predominant presence of this type of vocabulary (Murphy et al., 2017; Nagy & Townsend, 2012; Zwiers, 2008), making its mastery essential for students to access both the comprehension and production of texts within academic settings (Beck et al., 2008; Godínez & Alarcón, 2018).

Additionally, as previously mentioned, there is a direct relationship between academic vocabulary knowledge and reading comprehension (Baumann, 2009; De Freitas et al., 2018; Godínez & Alarcón, 2018; Goodwin et al., 2017; Hess Zimmermann, 2013, 2019; Nagy & Townsend, 2012; Snow & Uccelli, 2009; Stahl, 1999; St. John & Vance, 2014). In this regard, students’ lack of academic vocabulary knowledge can pose a significant barrier to their academic success (Mancilla-Martinez & Lesaux, 2011; Nagy & Townsend, 2012).

Achieving a deep understanding of words is not a simple process, as it involves a range of diverse skills that can pose challenges for many students (Baralo, 2007; Beck et al., 2008; Borkovska, 2024; Godínez & Alarcón, 2018; Hess Zimmermann, 2013; Hess Zimmermann & Núñez Rodríguez Wyler, 2021; Kieffer & Lesaux, 2007; Nagy & Townsend, 2012; Rojas Porras, 2006; Snow & Uccelli, 2009; St. John & Vance, 2014). It is important to highlight that students’ prior experiences with language—or lack thereof—as well as their capacity for reflection, have a direct influence on the acquisition of academic vocabulary (Hess Zimmermann & Núñez Rodríguez Wyler, 2021). Moreover, within the educational context, repeated encounters with a word are essential for students to access its meaning and expand their knowledge of academic vocabulary (Levie et al., 2016; Stahl & Shiel, 1992). In this regard, some authors emphasize that the only way to enrich vocabulary is through exposure and engagement with reading exercises, analytical and critical reading of texts, and text production (Rojas Porras, 2006).

Moreover, academic vocabulary has specific characteristics that help explain why it is often difficult for students to fully acquire. On the one hand, it is a type of lexicon that conveys abstract and complex concepts and ideas, and it frequently employs nominalizations as well as formal and prestigious expressions (Snow & Uccelli, 2009). On the other, its proper use requires that students understand the communicative context in which it is used. For this reason, it has been noted that the acquisition of academic vocabulary occurs gradually (Nippold, 2016) and is supported by a variety of activities that can be fostered both at home and in school settings (Graves, 2006; Muraki et al., 2023). In this regard, the acquisition of academic vocabulary requires that students be immersed in literate environments where they are repeatedly exposed to a range of academic words, and engage in diverse experiences that allow them to practice using this vocabulary in authentic contexts—that is, through participation in reading, discussion, and text production activities (Nagy & Townsend, 2012; Nippold, 2016; Rojas Porras, 2006).

3. Strategies for the Acquisition and Teaching of Academic Vocabulary

Various studies have attempted to explain the factors involved in the process of acquiring and teaching academic vocabulary, focusing on analyzing the strategies used by learners to learn words and those used by teachers to teach new terms. Authors such as Anglin et al. (1993) and Nippold (2016) identify three main strategies for acquiring new words. The first is direct instruction, which occurs when a person with knowledge of a given term provides the definition of the unfamiliar word. This strategy also includes the use of dictionaries and glossaries to learn meanings. Direct instruction is the strategy most used in schools for vocabulary teaching (Pacheco & Goodwin, 2013; Wright & Cervetti, 2016), although it has been shown to be effective for learning only about 10% of words (Sparks & Deacon, 2015).

The second strategy for learning and teaching vocabulary is contextual abstraction, which involves using the contextual clues provided by a text to determine the meaning of an unfamiliar word (Anglin et al., 1993; Ilter, 2019). This is one of the main strategies for expanding the vocabulary of school-aged children and adolescents (Graves, 2006), although it has been noted that for it to be effective, students must have had rich experiences with a variety of textual contexts and encounter the unfamiliar word multiple times in order to fully acquire it (Beck et al., 2008; Nichols et al., 2015; Simmons et al., 2010; Stahl & Shiel, 1992).

Finally, there is the strategy of morphological analysis, which occurs when an individual analyzes a word based on its component morphemes (root, prefixes, and suffixes) and uses the information from these parts to infer the meaning of the entire word (Anglin et al., 1993; Goodwin et al., 2017; Kieffer & Lesaux, 2007; Martinez et al., 2024; Nippold & Sun, 2008; Nugraha, 2017; Pacheco & Goodwin, 2013; Tighe & Fernandes, 2019). This strategy tends to be less commonly used in school settings because it places a high demand on students’ metalinguistic competence. However, it has been shown to be an effective approach for fostering students’ independent word learning (Bangs & Binder, 2016; Baumann, 2009; Baumann et al., 2007; Bowers et al., 2010; Carlisle, 2004; Martín Vegas, 2018; Nichols et al., 2015).

Specifically in the field of second language instruction—included in the present study for their general relevance—Nugraha (2017) identifies two additional strategies that students use to learn new words: metacognitive strategies and word memorization strategies. Metacognitive strategies occur when learners are fully aware of their learning process and, as a result, plan, monitor, and evaluate which words they will focus on during their learning. Research has shown that when metacognitive strategies are taught through explicit instruction, students can increase their vocabulary knowledge and improve their reading comprehension levels (Kärbla et al., 2020; Simmons et al., 2010). Meanwhile, the word memorization strategy occurs when, in order to remember previously acquired vocabulary, students use mechanical means to retain those words (connecting the word with a previous experience, grouping words according to their type, looking for synonyms or antonyms, remembering the new word by connecting it with other words learned, using flashcards, underlining the word, trying to make a sentence using the word, among others).

One final strategy, which has not been observed in students’ spontaneous use but is employed by teachers for vocabulary instruction, is the semantic categorization of words. This strategy is based on the assumption that words should be taught as part of semantic groups through the use of maps and networks, as it has been shown that establishing connections between new words and previously known ones facilitates the learning of the former (Beck et al., 2008; Murphy et al., 2017; Nichols et al., 2015; Simmons et al., 2010; Stahl & Shiel, 1992).

4. The Present Study

So far, it has been established that the acquisition of academic vocabulary is one of the most significant challenges faced by children and adolescents during their school years and that it is directly linked to reading comprehension and academic success. Additionally, a review has been provided of the strategies that, according to various studies, are used both by students to acquire new words and by teachers to teach unfamiliar terms to their students. However, most of the research on this topic has been conducted with populations from countries in the Global North. It is therefore relevant to examine the strategies used by students in Latin America—specifically in Mexico—for learning academic vocabulary. This will allow, on the one hand, for a better understanding of the strategies students employ when engaging with texts, and on the other, for an assessment of whether those strategies are effective in helping them access the meaning of unfamiliar academic words. Additionally, given the direct relationship between academic vocabulary acquisition and reading comprehension, it is of interest to examine whether students’ reading comprehension level (high/low) influences both the types of strategies they use when encountering unfamiliar vocabulary and their ability to access the meaning of unknown words. In this regard, the present study seeks to answer the following research questions:

• Research Question 1: What strategies do Mexican secondary school students with high and low levels of reading comprehension use when encountering unfamiliar academic vocabulary?
• Research Question 2: Do the strategies used by the students enable them to access the meaning of unfamiliar academic vocabulary, and which strategy is more effective?
• Research Question 3: Does the type of strategies students employ to access unfamiliar academic vocabulary depend on their level of reading comprehension, and if so, how is this influence manifested?

5. Materials and Method

5.1. Participants

The participants in this study were first-year secondary school students (equivalent to 7th grade) from a public school in the city of Querétaro, Mexico. They attended a general secondary school located in the city center, which attracts students from various nearby municipalities due to its convenient location and accessibility. The total student population of the school consisted of 778 students. The sample consisted of 40 students—20 female and 20 male—all monolingual Spanish speakers, aged between 11 and 12 years, with no reported history of learning or language disorders according to school records.

5.2. Instruments

Two instruments were used for data collection: (1) a reading comprehension assessment to categorize participants into high and low reading level groups, and (2) a researcher-designed instrument to observe how participants approached unfamiliar academic vocabulary.

5.2.1. Instrument for Measuring Reading Comprehension

In order to determine the reading comprehension level of the participants and to form the high and low reading level groups, the test Competencia Lectora para Educación Secundaria (CompLEC) (Pelluch et al., 2008) was used. This is a standardized instrument that assesses reading comprehension in Spanish among students aged 11 to 14. Although this instrument is normed for Spain, it was considered appropriate for grouping purposes given the absence of equivalent tests with Mexican norms and the fact that the aim was not to conduct individual or diagnostic assessments. The CompLEC instrument consists of five texts—three continuous and two discontinuous—and a total of 20 questions, designed according to the theoretical framework of PISA-2000. The continuous texts are expository, ranging in length from 274 to 426 words. The discontinuous texts, in turn, include a paragraph of text accompanied by Cartesian axis graphs or hierarchical diagrams with footnotes. These five texts represent a significant portion of the diversity of reading materials covered in the PISA assessment. Of the 20 questions included in the CompLEC test —seventeen multiple-choice and three open-ended—five correspond to information retrieval, ten focus on information integration, and the final five involve reflection on the content and structure of the text. In this way, CompLEC aims to assess how students retrieve and integrate information, as well as how they reflect on and evaluate both the form and content of texts. The test has been properly piloted and administered to a large number of students, and the results have shown that it has satisfactory psychometric properties of reliability, homogeneity, and validity (internal consistency: Cronbach’s alpha with a global index of 0.795; validity: Pearson correlation between the CompLEC score and numerical grades in Language, Mathematics, Natural Sciences, and Social Sciences with p < 0.01 in all cases) (Llorens Tatay et al., 2011). The test was administered to participants in a single group session lasting approximately one hour. To this end, each student was provided with printed reading material and an answer sheet, which they completed individually. During the administration of the instrument, the second author and the classroom teacher were present at all times.

5.2.2. Instrument for Measuring Access to Unfamiliar Academic Vocabulary

To identify the strategies used by secondary school students to access the meaning of unfamiliar words while reading texts, a measurement instrument was developed specifically to assess access to unfamiliar academic vocabulary. The process followed for its design is described below.

The first step involved selecting the type of text through which unfamiliar vocabulary would be presented to the students. Scientific texts were chosen because they commonly feature academic language and a large proportion of the lexicon in these texts corresponds to academic vocabulary (Snow & Uccelli, 2009; Zwiers, 2008). The texts were selected from the digital magazine ¿Cómo ves? (¿Cómo ves? Divulgación de la Ciencia UNAM, 2024), which publishes short articles in its “Ráfagas” section on topics that may be of interest to adolescents and are accessible to secondary school students. An initial selection of 20 science texts was made, as this subject area typically contains a high proportion of words that fall within academic vocabulary, many of which are morphologically complex (Nagy & Townsend, 2012). In a second stage, the 20 texts were reviewed again, and two were selected based on the presence of morphologically complex nouns located in different paragraphs of the text. Since it was necessary to ensure that the words students would encounter were truly unfamiliar, the decision was made to create pseudowords. Therefore, two nouns were selected from each text: one that was accompanied by an explicit definition within the original text and another that did not include an explicit definition but was morphologically complex. Once the four terms were selected—funcionamiento (functioning), neuroplasticidad (neuroplasticity), huella de carbono (carbon footprint), and beneficio (benefit)—their definitions were sought in at least two of the following three dictionaries: the Diccionario del Español de México (Diccionario del Español de México (DEM), 2024), the Diccionario de la Real Academia Española (Real Academia Española, n.d.), and the Diccionario Panhispánico del Español Jurídico (Real Academia Española, & Consejo General del Poder Judicial, n.d.). Based on the definitions found in these reference works, similarities were identified to determine the core meanings of each term. Once those meanings were identified, four morphologically complex words were created by combining morphemes that would allow the construction of their full meaning. The meanings of each morpheme were obtained from the definitions included in the Breve Diccionario Etimológico de la Lengua Española (Gómez de Silva, 1998) or in Morfología derivativa nominal en el español de México (Moreno de Alba, 1986). For example, for the term huella de carbono (carbon footprint), the starting point was two definitions: (1) “Medida de la cantidad de gases de efecto invernadero producidos por las diversas actividades realizadas por un individuo, una comunidad o una organización” ‘Measure of the amount of greenhouse gases produced by the various activities carried out by an individual, a community, or an organization’ (Real Academia Española, n.d.; emphasis added), and (2) “Totalidad de gases de efecto invernadero provenientes, por efecto directo o indirecto, de la actividad de una organización” “Total amount of greenhouse gases resulting, either directly or indirectly, from the activity of an organization” (Real Academia Española, & Consejo General del Poder Judicial, n.d.; emphasis added). The morphemes chosen for these meanings were therefore quantity: cuanti-, gas: gas-, effect: -ción, and activities: acti-. By combining the morphemes to form the pseudoword, the term actigasicuantición was created. The number of morphemes used varied across the four pseudowords due to the specific semantic relationships within each term. Finally, the instrument included the following pseudowords: actigasicuantición (four morphemes), desempeñaje and neuroflexitud (three morphemes each), and favoranza (two morphemes).

Next, the original nouns from the scientific texts were replaced with the pseudowords. Additionally, to ensure greater similarity between the two scientific texts presented to the students, one of them was adjusted in length so that both texts would consist of two paragraphs and be of comparable length (187 and 214 words). Another methodological decision was to include the definition of one of the four pseudowords that each participant would encounter during the reading of the texts. This was done to observe whether students were able to derive the meaning of the pseudowords based on explicit information provided in the text (i.e., a definition). The pseudowords that included a definition were actigasicuantición and neuroflexitud, as these were the terms that had a definition in the original texts. During the implementation, counterbalancing was applied to the presence of the two pseudowords that included explicit definitions in the texts, so that each student encountered one pseudoword with a definition and three without. That is, two sets of texts were created: Texts A and Texts B. Texts A included the pseudoword actigasicuantición with an explicit definition, and favoranza, desempeñaje, and neuroflexitud without a definition, while Texts B included actigasicuantición, favoranza, and desempeñaje without a definition, and neuroflexitud with an explicit definition. Texts A and B were counterbalanced during the implementation and can be consulted in Appendix A.

5.3. Procedure

The data collection procedure took place in two stages. In the first stage, the Comp-LEC reading comprehension assessment (Pelluch et al., 2008) was administered to 146 first-year secondary school students (seventh grade), divided into six groups. The groups were organized by the school authorities, but the second author was responsible for providing the instructions for completing the test and for distributing the printed reading booklet and answer sheet to each student. Once the instrument had been administered, the students were ranked in descending order according to their scores in a database (highest score: 16/20; lowest score: 4/20). Subsequently, the 20 students with the highest scores were selected (high reading level group: score range from 16 to 11 points; 9 females), along with those with the lowest scores (low reading level group: score ranges of 4 and 5 points; 11 females). It is important to note that, overall, the scores obtained by the participants in our study were lower than those reported in the interpretative norms of the test for the Spanish population (Pelluch et al., 2008).

In a second stage, the participants from both groups (high and low reading levels) were presented with the instrument designed to assess access to unfamiliar academic vocabulary. The instrument was administered by the second author in an individual interview with each participant. During the interview, participants were asked to read the two scientific texts, one at a time. After reading each text, participants were asked whether they had encountered any unfamiliar words, and the inquiry then focused on the meanings they assigned to the pseudowords, as well as the reasoning they provided for their responses. To this end, a flexible question script was followed. Each student was told: Te voy a dar a leer dos textos. “I’m going to give you two texts to read.” Los vas a leer uno por uno y después de la lectura de cada texto te voy a hacer unas preguntas. “You will read them one at a time, and after each one I’ll ask you a few questions.” Si no conoces alguna palabra de las que vienen en el texto, me puedes preguntar. “If there’s a word in the text that you don’t know, you can ask me about it.” Once the participant finished reading each text, the following questions were asked: ¿De qué trató el texto? “What was the text about?” ¿Conoces todas las palabras del texto? “Do you know all the words in the text?” Ahora quiero que pensemos sobre algunas de las palabras de este texto. “Now I’d like us to think about some of the words in this text.” (Referring to the first pseudoword) ¿Esta palabra ya la habías escuchado o habías visto? “Had you heard or seen this word before?” ¿En dónde? “Where?” ¿Qué crees que significa? “What do you think it means?”¿Hay algo en el texto que te dé la pista para saberlo? “Is there anything in the text that gives you a clue to figure it out?” ¿Cómo lo supiste? “How did you know?” ¿Hay alguna otra pista? “Is there another clue?” ¿Cómo lo pensaste? “How did you figure it out?” ¿Hay algo en la palabra misma que te ayude a saber qué significa? “Is there anything in the word itself that helps you understand what it means?” ¿Cómo lo sabes? “How do you know?” ¿Hay alguna otra manera en la que se pueda saber qué significa? “Is there another way to figure out what it means?”. The same procedure was followed for all pseudowords present in both texts. The interviews were conducted in a space provided by the school, lasted between 20 and 30 min, and were audio-recorded for subsequent analysis.

5.4. Transcription and Coding

The interviews conducted were transcribed into a database, where each participant was assigned a row and two columns were used to record their responses for each pseudoword. In one column, the responses related to the strategies used to access the meaning of the pseudoword were transcribed and coded. The criteria for coding the responses can be found in

Table 1. Coding of participant’s responses regarding the strategies used to derive the meaning of unfamiliar vocabulary.

Type of Strategy	Description	Example
Contextual abstraction (CONTEXT)	Identifies and states the definition of the word as provided by the text	Justo después de eso [actigasicuantición] ya dice que es la cantidad de gases y compuestos de efecto invernadero que implica la fabricación o el consumo de bienes y servicios. Right after that [actigasicuantición], it says that it is the amount of greenhouse gases and compounds involved in the manufacture or consumption of goods and services.
Retrieving textual information (TXT INFO)	Repeats parts of the text that are not directly related to the meaning of the word	Después de esa palabra [actigasicuantición], la huella hídrica y la huella de tierra de una hora de videoconferencia con la cámara prendida, o sea, están proyectando algo desde una cámara. Bueno, esa fue la idea. After that word [actigasicuantición], the water footprint and land footprint of an hour of videoconferencing with the camera on, that is, they are projecting something from a camera. Well, that was the idea.
Morphological analysis (MORPH)	Identifies the morphemes of the word and constructs its meaning based on them	Neuro como de neurona que se encuentra en el cerebro y flexitud como flexibilidad y podría ser neurona- flexibilidad y puede ser que se vuelve flexible a las ciertas cosas. Neuro as in neuron, which is found in the brain, and flexitud like flexibility—so it could mean something like neuron-flexibility, and maybe it refers to becoming flexible to certain things.
Relating to prior knowledge (KNOW)	Connects to prior knowledge of content that is not present in the text	Suena como una palabra científica, por su nombre parece venir como del latín por actigas. It sounds like a scientific word, as its name seems to come from the Latin actigas.
Partial retrieval of morphemes (PAR MORPH)	Retrieves or cites part of the word but does not succeed in fully determining its meaning	Porque cuantición es como cuántico y lo de actigas la palabra gas, eso sí está correcto, dice la cantidad de gases. Because cuantición sounds like quantum, and actigas includes the word gas—which makes sense, since it does mention the amount of gases.
Rereading the text multiple times (REREAD)	Reads the text or sentence two or more times	Volver a leer varias veces el texto. Rereading the text multiple times.

Source: own creation.

.

In the second column of the database, the score each participant received for accessing the meaning of each pseudoword was recorded, along with the strategies they had used to derive it. To do so, two aspects were taken into consideration. On the one hand, it was important to determine whether the participant had successfully accessed the meaning of the unfamiliar word completely (2 points), partially (1 point), or not at all (0 points). On the other hand, it was important to observe what type of strategy the student had used to reach (or fail to reach) the meaning of the unfamiliar word.

Table 2. Coding of responses for accessing the meaning of unknown words based on strategies employed by participants.

Type of Answer	Description	Example	Score
A	Retrieves the full meaning from the context within the text	Por lo que leí, pues la cantidad de gases que se liberan por la transmisión o las cámaras prendidas Based on what I read, it’s the amount of gases released through transmission or when the cameras are on	2
B	Retrieves the full meaning based on one or more morphemes of the word	Creo que tiene algo que ver con favorecer I think it has something to do with favoring	2
C	Retrieves the full meaning based on prior knowledge of content that is not present in the text	Como que son como las neuronas que se esparcen en todo el cerebro y te ayudan a aprenderte cosas… es como el trabajo de las neuronas It’s kind of like the neurons that spread throughout the brain and help you learn things… it’s like the work that neurons do	2
D	Retrieves the full meaning based on a synonym	Supongo que hace referencia a beneficiar a alguien o algo I guess it refers to benefiting someone or something	2
A2	Retrieves partial meaning from the context within the text	Significa que las neuronas son más rápidas con la música porque tienen que pensar más rápido It means that neurons are faster with music because they have to think more quickly	1
B2	Retrieves partial meaning based on one or more morphemes of the word	Es como uno de, así como dice aquí, del dióxido de carbono [gas], más o menos así. Algo de cuántico y gases, gas cuántico It’s like one of those—like it says here—carbon dioxide [gas], something like that. Something about quantum and gases, quantum gas	1
C2	Retrieves partial meaning based on prior knowledge of content that is not present in the text	Pues yo creo que significa como el daño que hace a algo o el efecto que tiene en una persona o en un ambiente Well, I think it means something like the harm it causes to something, or the effect it has on a person or the environment	1
E	Does not retrieve the meaning	No sé muy bien qué significa I’m not quite sure what it means	0

Source: own creation.

presents the coding categories for this section.

To guarantee coding reliability, two independent coders evaluated each response using the predefined categories for each variable. Any discrepancies were discussed and resolved through consensus until full agreement was reached.

6. Results

6.1. Results of the Analysis of Strategies Employed by Students to Access the Meaning of Unfamiliar Words

With the aim of identifying the strategies students used when facing unfamiliar academic words (pseudowords), the first step was to analyze their responses to the questions “¿Qué crees que significa? What do you think it means? ¿Cómo lo sabes? How do you know? ¿Qué te dio la pista? What gave you the clue?”, which were then coded according to the categories presented in Table 1. It is important to note that, since in our instrument the strategy of contextual abstraction could only be applied to one of the four pseudowords, it was decided to normalize the data to ensure that the use of all strategies would be comparable. To do this, the total number of responses was taken as 1, and the proportion of correct responses was calculated. The results are therefore reported in proportions (see Figure 1).

As shown in Figure 1, the strategies most frequently used by students when facing the pseudowords were contextual abstraction, retrieving textual information, and partial retrieval of morphemes. A statistical analysis using a repeated measures ANOVA revealed a significant effect in the types of strategies employed by the students (F = 32.371, p < 0.001, η² = 0.454).

On the other hand, an analysis was conducted to determine whether there were differences between groups (high and low reading level) in the strategies used when facing the pseudowords. The results of this analysis are presented in Figure 2.

Figure 2 shows that students with a high reading level used four types of strategies more frequently than students with a low reading level: contextual abstraction, retrieving textual information, breaking down words into all their morphemes, and rereading the text. In contrast, students with a low reading level used the strategy of partial retrieval of morphemes more frequently than those with a high reading level. An analysis using a repeated measures ANOVA with a group factor (high and low reading level) and a repeated measures factor (types of strategy) showed a significant effect for strategy (F = 34.260, p < 0.001, η² = 0.474) and for reading level (F = 10.820, p = 0.002, η² = 0.222), as well as a significant interaction between used strategy*reading level (F = 3.276, p = 0.007, η² = 0.079).

6.2. Results of the Analysis of Access to the Meaning of Unfamiliar Words

An analysis was then carried out to observe how participants had—or had not—managed to access the meaning of the pseudowords. To this end, the students’ responses were first analyzed in terms of the score assigned for accessing the meaning of each pseudoword and the strategy they had used to reach that meaning, based on the coding criteria presented in Table 2. This method of coding responses makes it possible to observe the effectiveness of each strategy in arriving at the meaning of the unfamiliar word. As previously mentioned, participants’ responses could receive the following scores: full access to the meaning (2 points), partial access (1 point), and no access (0 points). The results of this analysis are shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3 shows that the most effective strategy for obtaining the meaning of the unfamiliar terms was the morphological analysis of the word. The data also show that for the morphological analysis strategy to be effective, it is necessary to know the meaning of all the morphemes, as the partial retrieval of morphemes strategy proved to be less effective. An analysis using a repeated measures ANOVA showed a significant effect of strategy on the ability to obtain the meaning of the pseudowords (F = 2.659, p = 0.033, η² = 0.034). It is important to note that the rereading text strategy was not included in this analysis, as it appeared only five times in the high reading level group and was not present in the responses of students with a low reading level.

Next, an analysis was conducted to determine whether the effectiveness of the strategies for obtaining meaning differed by reading level (see Figure 4).

Figure 4 shows that students with a high reading level use the same strategies as those with a low reading level, but that they achieve a higher level of success in obtaining the meaning of the words. This was confirmed by an ANOVA test, which indicated that there was a significant group effect on word meaning comprehension by reading level (F = 9.991, p = 0.002, η² = 0.033), although there was no effect by strategy (F = 2.320, p = 0.057, η² = 0.030) or interaction between reading level*strategy (F = 0.156, p = 0.960, η² = 0.002).

Later, an analysis was carried out to determine whether the number of morphemes that made up the pseudowords affected the participants’ ability to obtain the meaning of the unknown word. The results are presented in Figure 5.

As shown in Figure 5, the pseudoword composed of two morphemes (favoranza) was the most accessible in terms of meaning for most participants, followed by the two pseudowords composed of three morphemes (desempeñaje and neuroflexitud). Lastly, the pseudoword composed of four morphemes (actigasicuantición) proved to be the most complex. This confirms that access to word meaning is related to the number of morphemes that compose the word. An analysis using repeated measures ANOVA showed that this difference was statistically significant (F = 23.761, p < 0.001, η² = 0.385). A Holm post hoc test showed that the differences lay between the pseudoword actigasicuantición and all the others (favoranza: p < 0.001; desempeñaje: p < 0.001; neuroflexitud: p < 0.001).

With the aim of observing whether there were significant differences attributable to students’ reading levels in their access to the meaning of the pseudowords based on the number of morphemes, a repeated-measures ANOVA was carried out (see graph in Figure 6). This analysis showed a significant effect for type of word (F = 23.761, p < 0.001, η² = 0.385) and for reading level (F = 6.022, p = 0.019, η² = 0.137), as well as a significant interaction between strategy used*reading level (F = 2.468, p = 0.066, η² = 0.061).

In general, our results highlight key differences in the strategies students use to interpret unfamiliar, morphologically complex words. As shown in Figure 1, the most commonly used strategies were contextual abstraction, retrieving textual information, and partial retrieval of morphemes, with significant differences in usage patterns. Figure 2 indicates that students with high reading level used more effective strategies, such as full morphological analysis and rereading the text, more frequently than those with low reading level.

Further analyses showed that morphological analysis was the most effective strategy, particularly when all morphemes were known (Figure 3), and that high-level readers were generally more successful in accessing word meaning, regardless of strategy (Figure 4). Morphological complexity also played a role, with simpler pseudowords being easier to interpret (Figure 5 and Figure 6), and high-level readers outperforming low-level readers across all word types. These findings underscore the importance of reading proficiency and morphological awareness in word comprehension. In the following section, we discuss the implications of these results.

7. Discussion

7.1. Research Question #1

The first research question aimed to analyze what strategies Mexican secondary school students with high and low reading comprehension levels use when encountering unfamiliar academic vocabulary. Our results indicate that the strategies students employed significantly more frequently were contextual abstraction, retrieving textual information, and partial retrieval of morphemes. This is consistent with the findings of previous studies, which report that these three strategies are among the most important for acquiring unfamiliar vocabulary (Anglin et al., 1993; Graves, 2006; Nippold & Sun, 2008; Stahl, 1999; St. John & Vance, 2014). In relation to this, the comparison between groups (high and low reading level) revealed interesting findings, as all students (both high and low reading levels) employed the same strategies, but those with high reading level used four strategies with significantly greater frequency than students with low reading level: contextual abstraction, retrieving textual information, rereading the text, and morphological analysis. In contrast, students with a low reading level made more frequent use of the partial retrieval of morphemes strategy. These results seem to suggest that students with a high reading level demonstrate greater ability than those with a low reading level to relate to prior knowledge and establish connections between concepts (Alexander-Shea, 2011; Nichols et al., 2015), as well as to create semantic networks that relate word meanings to other domains (Baralo, 2007). Additionally, our findings showed that they employed strategies that require drawing on resources grounded in real-life experiences and broader world knowledge (Nichols et al., 2015; Ilter, 2019; Martín Vegas, 2018; Stahl, 1999), as well as the ability to assign abstract meanings to words based on prior experiences (Muraki et al., 2023). This disparity observed between students with high and low reading levels may be due to individual differences in vocabulary acquisition that arise from both social factors and those intrinsic to the individual (Hoff, 2014; Levie et al., 2016).

7.2. Research Question #2

Our second research question aimed to explore whether the strategies used by the students enabled them to access the meaning of unfamiliar academic vocabulary, and to determine which strategy was most effective. In this regard, the results indicated that, among our students, the morphological analysis strategy proved to be significantly the most successful for accessing the meanings of words. This coincides with what Anglin et al. (1993) pointed out in their seminal study and has also been corroborated by more recent work such as that of Bowers et al. (2010) and Goodwin et al. (2017). However, this result contrasts with studies such as those by Graves (2006) and Stahl (1999), who argue that the most effective strategy for accessing the meaning of an unfamiliar word is contextual abstraction. The apparent contradiction between these two proposals may be attributed to differences between the variables in our study and those considered by the aforementioned authors (e.g., student age, text type). Nevertheless, we believe the discrepancy is primarily due to two main factors. On the one hand, given that all the words in our instrument were morphologically complex, extracting the meaning of the morphemes and integrating them to achieve the overall meaning of the word was the most effective strategy. However, this strategy cannot be applied to words that are not morphologically complex. On the other hand, the difference between our findings and those reported by other authors may also be due to the way in which the morphological analysis strategy is conceptualized. Our data show that for this strategy to be truly effective in learning new words, it is necessary to reach the meaning of all the morphemes that make up the word; in this sense, it is not enough to recover the meaning of only some of its parts (partial retrieval of morphemes). This has also been pointed out by studies such as those by Kieffer and Lesaux (2012) and Martinez et al. (2024). This allows us to confirm that for the morphological analysis strategy to be truly effective, the individual must carry out a series of highly complex metalinguistic and cognitive processes. On the one hand, it requires the ability to segment words into their morphemes (Hess Zimmermann & Núñez Rodríguez Wyler, 2021), a process that involves factors such as prior knowledge of the root, the phonetic structure of the word, its frequency of occurrence, and the ability to establish analogies (Nippold & Sun, 2008; Pacheco & Goodwin, 2013). In addition, it is necessary to identify word formation patterns and to establish semantic relationships between the word and the functions played by the morphemes in its construction (Ravid & Geiger, 2009). In that sense, morphological analysis of words is a multidimensional construct that involves a set of foundational knowledge highlighting the presence of meaningful units within words (Goodwin et al., 2017). That is why, although the morphological analysis strategy has been shown to have a positive impact on vocabulary instruction for struggling readers (Bowers et al., 2010), for it to be an effective strategy, it requires the activation of many additional skills that individuals do not always have readily available.

In line with the above, our study’s findings regarding the relationship between the number of morphemes that make up an unfamiliar word and the access to its meaning support this view. As expected, our data showed that it was significantly more difficult to understand the meaning of words formed by a greater number of morphemes (actigasi-cuantición, four morphemes) than those formed by fewer morphemes. This is consistent with the findings of Anglin et al. (1993) and could help explain why longer words tend to be acquired later (Llauradó & Tolchinsky, 2013).

7.3. Research Question #3

The third research question sought to examine whether the types of strategies students use to access unfamiliar academic vocabulary are influenced by their reading comprehension level, and if so, how this influence is manifested. In this regard, our results showed that, in general, students from both reading levels employ the same strategies—albeit with different frequencies of use—but that the acquisition of meaning is significantly higher among students with a high reading level (see Figure 4). This indicates that the mere use of strategies is not always sufficient to access the meaning of unfamiliar vocabulary. An analysis of the strategies favored by high-level readers can shed light on why the use of strategies is not always sufficient. As previously noted, high-level readers favored the use of three strategies related to establishing connections between the unfamiliar word and the information that can be extracted from the text being read: contextual abstraction, retrieving textual information, and rereading the text. The use of these three strategies indicates that high-level readers are more likely than low-level readers to recognize that the text itself can provide important information to access the meaning of unfamiliar words. In this regard, these readers engage more frequently in metacognitive activities that allow them to monitor their comprehension and direct their attention to contextual elements within the text that may provide clues for inferring the meaning of unfamiliar words (see Solé, 2007).

Specifically regarding the differences observed between the high and low reading level groups in relation to the strategies involving morphological analysis of unfamiliar words, it is noteworthy that our high-level readers made significantly greater use of the morphological analysis strategy (recovering all the morphemes in a word to arrive at its meaning), whereas the low-level readers used significantly more the partial retrieval of morphemes strategy (recovering only some of the morphemes in the word). These results are consistent with those found by Tighe and Binder (2015) in a study with adults, which reported that readers with low comprehension levels display weaker skills than proficient readers when it comes to using the morphological analysis strategy to access their meaning. Additionally, this aligns with the findings of Pacheco and Goodwin (2013), who point out that in morphological analysis, more competent readers tend to go from the whole to the parts (from the whole word to all the morphemes to confirm their knowledge of the whole word) and from the parts to the whole (using the morphemes to find the meaning of the whole word), while readers with difficulties tend to go from one part of the word to the whole (finding the root and transferring the meaning to the whole word or relating a morpheme to another word that has the same morpheme). This allows students with high reading levels to better retrieve the meaning of unfamiliar words.

This study presents several potential limitations that warrant careful consideration. The final sample size is relatively small, which restricts the generalizability of the findings. The decision to utilize this sample size was primarily influenced by the extensive effort required to conduct and analyze interviews with each participant, consequently limiting the volume of data collected. Furthermore, the Instrument for Measuring Access to Unfamiliar Academic Vocabulary is subject to certain biases. The pseudowords employed in the instrument were constructed by combining morphemes that could convey an expected meaning, thereby ensuring that none of the participants were familiar with the test items. However, the use of these pseudowords introduces two possible concerns: firstly, participants may have perceived them as artificially fabricated, potentially influencing their responses. Despite this, students appeared to regard the pseudowords as meaningful, likely due to their frequent exposure to new and unfamiliar academic terminology in their daily academic activities, which rendered the pseudowords plausible. Additionally, since all pseudowords were derived from morphemes with meanings in Spanish, there exists a potential bias in the cognitive strategies students employ to infer meaning. Specifically, morphological analysis yielded the most successful outcomes. Had the instrument utilized pseudowords based on alternative linguistic constructions, this strategy might have been less effective. Future research could address these limitations by employing infrequent academic vocabulary instead of pseudowords, using pseudowords not derived from Spanish morphemes, or developing instruments that facilitate alternative semantic inference strategies.

In sum, based on the analysis carried out in the present study regarding the strategies used by Mexican secondary school students when facing unfamiliar academic vocabulary, we can conclude that the effectiveness in the use of strategies to access word meanings is closely related to students’ reading level. Our data suggest that students with a high reading level not only use a wider range of strategies more frequently—such as contextual abstraction, retrieving textual information, rereading the text, and morphological analysis—but also achieve greater effectiveness in accessing the meaning of new words. This is due to their ability to relate to prior knowledge, establish complex semantic relationships, and actively monitor their comprehension—processes that reflect a more sophisticated use of metacognitive and linguistic skills. On the other hand, students with a lower reading level tend to rely on less complex strategies, such as partial retrieval of morphemes, which limits their success in acquiring new vocabulary. Additionally, our study shows that morphological analysis proves to be the most effective strategy for obtaining the meaning of unfamiliar vocabulary, if the student possesses the necessary cognitive, linguistic, and metalinguistic resources to decompose and reconstruct the meaning based on all the morphemes present in the word. In summary, the study confirms that the acquisition of academic vocabulary does not depend solely on the use of strategies, but also on the quality and depth with which they are implemented—factors that are conditioned by students’ reading level and their cognitive and linguistic background. Furthermore, it confirms the intrinsic relationship between vocabulary and reading comprehension, as highlighted by numerous researchers: the greater the vocabulary knowledge, the higher the reading comprehension, and conversely, the lower the level of reading comprehension, the more limited the access to vocabulary knowledge.

In conclusion, this study highlights the critical role that reading proficiency plays in the effective use of strategies for acquiring unfamiliar academic vocabulary. The findings demonstrate that students with higher reading levels are better equipped to employ a diverse and sophisticated range of strategies—such as contextual abstraction, morphological analysis, and active comprehension monitoring—which enables them to more successfully infer and understand new terms. These results underscore that vocabulary acquisition is not a passive process, but rather one that is deeply connected to cognitive, linguistic, and metalinguistic abilities.

From an educational standpoint, these insights call for a more deliberate and systematic approach to vocabulary instruction. Academic vocabulary must be explicitly taught, rather than presumed to develop incidentally through school exposure. It is essential to foster metalinguistic awareness in students and to empower them to recognize when they encounter an unfamiliar word, as well as to self-monitor and regulate their learning strategies. Vocabulary development should be prioritized at all educational levels and across curricula, supported by literacy-rich environments that provide continuous exposure to both oral and written language. Engaging with complex and varied texts from multiple discourse types and knowledge areas, along with repeated exposure to vocabulary in diverse contexts, can significantly enrich students’ linguistic experience. Ultimately, promoting the conscious, intentional, and sustained teaching of vocabulary—while equipping students with effective word-learning strategies—may enhance reading comprehension and broaden their access to academic knowledge.