Personalizing text by using readers’ names – effects on reading comprehension and social agency Personalizing text by using readers’ names – effects on reading comprehension and social agency

• Published in: European journal of psychology of education Vol. 40; no. 3; p. 91
• Main Authors: Lindhaus, Maike, Ehlert, Mareike, Dutke, Stephan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01.09.2025; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Academic Achievement; Adult Learning; Cognitive Processes; Competence; Control Groups; Customization; Data Analysis; Education; Educational materials; Educational Psychology; Elementary Education; Elementary school students; Elementary Schools; Experimental Groups; Grade 4; Hypotheses; Inferences; Instructional Materials; Interpersonal Relationship; Learning; Learning Motivation; Learning Processes; Linguistics; Meta Analysis; Names; Narratives; Pedagogic Psychology; Readers; Reading Ability; Reading comprehension; Reading Fluency; Reading Materials; Reading promotion; Reading Research; Reading Skills; Student Motivation; Personalization effect; Personalization; Reading motivation; Reading comprehension; Social agency
• ISSN: 0256-2928; 1878-5174; 1878-5174
• DOI: 10.1007/s10212-025-00991-1

Personalizing text is known to support learning from text. The present study extends evidence of the personalization effect by investigating whether elementary school students’ reading comprehension benefits from reading narratives personalized by using the reader’s name for the narrative’s protagonist. Additionally, this study examined the influence of personalization on social agency and tested the hypothesis that social agency mediated the personalization effect. For this purpose, N  = 96 elementary school students were tested. Fifty-one students read a narrative in which the protagonist shared the reader’s first name, while the control group ( n  = 45) read a narrative with a protagonist who had a different name. Reading comprehension was assessed using a standardized test that measured both text recall and transfer performance. Readers of the personalized narrative showed significantly higher text transfer and higher social agency ratings. Social agency was found to mediate the personalization effect on text transfer. These findings suggest that personalizing reading materials for elementary school students can enhance their reading comprehension by increasing their sense of social agency.