0000000000050312

AUTHOR

Tomás Sola Martínez

Strategic Decisions in Task-Oriented Reading.

AbstractAnswering questions from texts are assessment and instructional activities that are frequently used in schools. Nevertheless, little is known about the strategic processes that students take while performing these tasks. We explored the amount and frequency that students initially read of a text before they answered questions pertaining to the material. In a procedure similar to the one used in the PISA (Program for International Students Assessment), one-hundred-seventy students between 7thand 9thgrade read and answered several questions designed to assess task-oriented reading in three specific texts. We recorded on-line indexes that evaluated student behavior (e.g., the amount of…

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Search and Comprehension Processes in Learning from Text

We analyzed the relationships between comprehension skill and search strategies in instructional text. In two experiments, college-level readers were asked to search a computer-presented science text in order to answer different types of questions. High level questions required the integration of information across paragraphs, whereas low level questions requested the localization of information within a single paragraph. High level questions were re-read more often and they resulted in broader text search patterns. Furthermore, students who were diagnosed as good comprehenders located relevant sections of the text faster and spent more time on those sections. Poor comprehenders, on the oth…

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Impact of question-answering tasks on search processes and reading comprehension

Abstract This study examined the effect of (a) high- and low-level questions and (b) reading the text before the questions asked on performance, delayed text recall, and deep text comprehension, as well as on specific text-inspection patterns. Participants were 37 undergraduate students who answered either high- or low-level questions using the software Read&Answer to read and answer questions on the computer screen. Additionally, half of the sample read first a text and then answered the questions (reading-first condition), whereas the other half answered the questions without having read the text in advance (no-reading-first condition). All participants had the text available to search fo…

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Evaluación de las estrategias y procesos de comprensión: el Test de Procesos de Comprensión

En este trabajo se presenta un nuevo test de evaluacion de la comprension lectora llamado Test de Procesos de Comprension (TPC) que, a diferencia de la mayoria de los test en espanol actuales, esta...

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Read&Answer, A Tool to Capture on-Line Processing of Electronic Texts

This paper is aimed at presenting Read&Answer, a tool that records reading times, one of the main on-line methods employed in text processing research. Read&Answer allows the recording, analysis and interpretation of the learner processing in order to test specific hypotheses and explain final comprehension results. First, we will describe the tool, and then we will briefly explain some research studies using the tool. We will show how Read&Answer can be used in combination with another on-line method extensively employed in text processing research, i.e., verbal protocols, and we will also compare Read&Answer with eye movement tracking, a widely accepted on-line reading times technique.

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The skills related to the early reading acquisition in Spain and Peru

This paper deals with the skills related to the early reading acquisition in two countries that share language. Traditionally on reading readiness research there is a great interest to find out what factors affect early reading ability, but differ from other academic skills that affect general school learnings. Furthermore, it is also known how the influence of pre-reading variables in two countries with the same language, affect the development of the reading. On the other hand, several studies have examined what skills are related to reading readiness (phonological awareness, alphabetic awareness, naming speed, linguistic skills, metalinguistic knowledge and basic cognitive processes), bu…

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Bridging Skill and Task-Oriented Reading

Some individual difference factors are more strongly correlated with performance on postreading questions when the text is not available than when it is. The present study explores if similar interactions occur with bridging skill, which refers to a reader's propensity to establish connections between explicit text during reading. Undergraduates read science texts using two research tools. The Reading Strategy-Assessment Tool provided a measure of bridging skill. Texts and postreading questions were presented in Read&Answer, and the availability of the text while answering was manipulated. Contrary to prior research, bridging skill was comparably correlated with performance in both availabi…

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On-line assessment of comprehension processes

In this paper we describe a new version of a former paper-and-pencil standardized comprehension test called Test of Comprehension Processes (Vidal-Abarca, Gilabert, Martínez, & Sellés, 2007). The new version has been adapted to a computer-based environment based on the moving window technique. It can be used to assess comprehension strategies of students from fifth to tenth grades (11 to 16 years old). Comprehension strategies are registered on-line using reading times and visits to relevant sections of the text during the question-answering process. Data show that the computerbased version draws similar results to those provided by the paper-and-pencil version. In addition, we identify the…

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Online assessment of strategic reading literacy skills

This study investigates the possibility of assessing strategic reading literacy skills with computers. The critical value of this assessment is the recording of online indices of the reader's behavior that can be interpreted in terms of strategies. The study uses materials of a standardized paper-and-pencil reading literacy test called CompLEC (Llorens et?al., 2011) and a technology called Read&Answer (Vidal-Abarca et?al., 2011) that presents texts and questions with a masking procedure that allows the recording of reading time and readers' actions to develop a computer-based version called e-CompLEC. We found that reliability and validity of the two versions are largely equivalent, and tha…

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Eficacia de tomar notas para integrar información de varios textos

Resumen tomado de la publicación Se analiza el efecto de tomar notas para integrar información de varios documentos científicos. Estudiantes universitarios leyeron cuatro textos científicos para elaborar un ensayo sobre un tema común a los cuatro textos. La mitad de los estudiantes pudieron tomar notas mientras leían así como usarlas para elaborar el ensayo, mientras la otra mitad no pudieron. La tarea fue realizada en un ordenador de forma que se registro la secuencia de acciones de cada participante. La eficacia de la integración se midió mediante algunos índices de calidad de ensayo y dos medidas adicionales de aprendizaje. Los resultados indicaron que los alumnos que no tomaron notas ap…

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