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…

Do graphical overviews facilitate or hinder comprehension in hypertext?

Educational hypertexts usually include graphical overviews, conveying the structure of the text schematically with the aim of fostering comprehension. Despite the claims about their relevance, there is currently no consensus on the impact that hypertext overviews have on the reader's comprehension. In the present paper we have explored how hypertext overviews might affect comprehension with regard to (a) the time at which students read the overview and (b) the hypertext difficulty. The results from two eye-tracking studies revealed that reading a graphical overview at the beginning of the hypertext is related to an improvement in the participant's comprehension of quite difficult hypertexts…

Learning to Read in a Digital World

Trust and mistrust when students read multiple information sources about climate change

Abstract The present study investigated how undergraduates judged the trustworthiness of different information sources that they read about climate change. Results showed that participants ( N  = 128) judged information from textbook and official documents to be more trustworthy than information from newspapers and a commercial agent. Moreover, participants put most emphasis on content and least emphasis on date of publication when judging document trustworthiness. When judging the trustworthiness of the textbook, they emphasized criteria differently than when evaluating other types of documents. Results also indicated that readers low in topic knowledge were more likely to trust less trust…

Location of navigation menus in websites: an experimental study with Arabic users

Published online: 31 October 2015 While Arabic users represent by far the fastest growing language population on the Internet, research about how the peculiarities of Arabic language may shape users’ web interactions is still scarce. The preferences of Arabic users for menu location in websites have been studied. Two competing arguments have been proposed regarding the best location of menus in websites: conventional design (navigation menu should be placed on that side where users expect it based on previous experience) and reading direction (navigation menu should be placed on that side where readers are used to start off reading, so that the navigation menu is likely to be attended first…

Are frequent users of social network sites good information evaluators? An investigation of adolescents’ sourcing abilities (¿Son los usuarios frecuentes de las redes sociales evaluadores competentes? Un estudio de las habilidades de los adolescentes para identificar, evaluar y hacer uso de las fuentes)

This study investigates the relationship between teenagers’ use of social networking sites (SNS) and their sourcing abilities. Sourcing is defined as students’ ability (1) to discriminate reliable ...

Cartes conceptuelles pour la formation : rôle des connaissances antérieures et de la consigne

ISBN : 979-10-92329-02‐5; National audience; L'étude présentée vise à déterminer le rôle des connaissances antérieures dans la construction de cartes conceptuelles, dans la mémorisation et l'apprentissage de connaissances issues d'un domaine de connaissances précis (l'effet de serre pour notre étude), en fonction de la consigne donnée (orienté la base de textes vs vers la construction d'un modèle de situation). Des étudiants de psychologie (avec peu de connaissances sur l'effet de serre) et des étudiants de biologie (avec un niveau élevé de connaissances sur l'effet de serre) ont participé à l'étude. Après avoir construit des cartes conceptuelles, les participants devaient répondre à des qu…

Task-oriented reading efficiency : interplay of general cognitive ability, task demands, strategies and reading fluency

AbstractThe associations among readers’ cognitive skills (general cognitive ability, reading skills, and attentional functioning), task demands (easy versus difficult questions), and process measures (total fixation time on relevant and irrelevant paragraphs) was investigated to explain task-oriented reading accuracy and efficiency (number of scores in a given time unit). Structural equation modeling was applied to a large dataset collected with sixth-grade students, which included samples of dysfluent readers and those with attention difficulties. The results are in line with previous findings regarding the dominant role of general cognitive ability in the accuracy of task-oriented reading…

Who do you refer to? How young students with mild intellectual disability confront anaphoric ambiguities in texts and sentences.

Along 2 experiments we tested the anaphoric pronoun resolution abilities of readers with intellectual disability in comparison with chronological and reading age-matched groups. In Experiment 1, the anaphor test of Elosua, Carriedo, and Garcia-Madruga (2009) confirmed that readers with intellectual disability (ID) are slower than control readers resolving clitic anaphoric pronouns, especially when the use of morphological cues (e.g. gender) is necessary. In order to test if the poor performance could be due to low levels of metacognitive skills during reading, an inconsistency detection task combined with eye tracking was designed in Experiment 2. Participants read short texts with an anaph…

Concept Maps for Comprehension and Navigation of Hypertexts

Comprehension and learning with hypertexts are challenging due to the nonlinearity of such digital documents. Processing hypertexts may involve navigation and comprehension problems, leading learners to cognitive overhead. Concept maps have been added to hypertexts to reduce the cognitive requirements of navigation and comprehension. This chapter explores the literature to examine the effects of concept maps on navigation, comprehension, and learning from hypertexts. The literature review aims to elucidate how concept maps may contribute to processing hypertexts and under which conditions. In spite of the variability of concept maps used in hypertexts, some findings converge. Concept maps r…

How adolescents navigate Wikipedia to answer questions / ¿Cómo navegan los adolescentes en Wikipedia para contestar preguntas?

AbstractIn one experiment, we explored how high school students use hyperlink relevance cues while they navigate to answer questions from hypertexts. Current evidence has shown that students may navigate by either performing a deep semantic analysis of the relationship between the question and the existing hyperlinks, or by matching words in the question to words in the hyperlink labels. We focused on how students combine both cues during navigation, and how comprehension skills relate to the use of such cues. Our study revealed that 14 year old students (N = 53) selected hyperlinks by relying to a similar degree on both word matching and semantic overlap. Furthermore, when there was a conf…

Processing and learning from multiple sources: A comparative case study of students with dyslexia working in a multiple source multimedia context

This study investigated how four 10th-grade students with dyslexia processed and integrated information across web pages and representations when learning in a multiple source multimedia context. Eye movement data showed that participants’ processing of the materials varied with respect to their initial exploration of the web pages, their overall processing time, and the linearity of their processing patterns, with post-learning interviews indicating the deliberate, strategic considerations underlying each participant’s processing pattern. Eye movement data in terms of fixation duration and percentage of regressions also corroborated the findings of formal, diagnostic assessments. Finally, …

Using Internet videos to learn about controversies: Evaluation and integration of multiple and multimodal documents by primary school students

Abstract In many Internet videos authors appear in front of the camera to present their particular view on a topic. Given the high consumption rate of Internet videos by teenagers, we explored the pros and cons of using these videos to learn about complex topics, compared to learning from textual web pages. Specifically, we studied how 207 primary school students (grades 4–6) evaluated and integrated multiple and multimodal web pages (text or video) while learning about the pros and cons of bottled water. Results showed no major role of modality in students' source memory, as measured by citations in their responses to an integration question and their memory for sources. Nevertheless, moda…

Using eye-tracking to assess sourcing during multiple document reading: A critical analysis

During the last 15 years, there have been some efforts to extend the use of eye - tracking to researching reading in complex contexts, such as the reading of multiple documents. The research community involved in this extension has been interested in higher - order comprehensio n processes occurring in complex reading contexts, such as sourcing, defined as the processes of attending to, representing, evaluating, and using available or accessible information about the sources of textual content. In this article, we argue that exte nding eye - tracking research to investigate more complex reading contexts has been made without critically reflecting on its validity in those contexts . Specific…

The development of source evaluation skills during adolescence: exploring different levels of source processing and their relationships (El desarrollo de las habilidades de evaluación de las fuentes durante la adolescencia: una exploración de los distintos niveles de procesamiento de las fuentes y sus relaciones)

This study examines the development of source evaluation skills in four groups of students from 10 to 19 years of age. We designed a set of tasks based on a distinction between three components of ...

Does Navigation Always Predict Performance? Effects of Navigation on Digital Reading are Moderated by Comprehension Skills

<p align="left">This study investigated interactive effects of navigation and offline comprehension skill on digital reading performance. As indicators of navigation relevant page selection and irrelevant page selection were considered. In 533 Spanish high school students aged 11-17 positive effects of offline comprehension skill and relevant page selection on digital reading performance were found, while irrelevant page selection had a negative effect. In addition, an interaction between relevant page selection and offline comprehension skill was found. While the effect of relevant page selection was strong in good offline comprehenders, it was significantly reduced in weak offline c…

Who Said That? Investigating the Plausibility-Induced Source Focusing Assumption with Norwegian Undergraduate Readers

Abstract The present study investigated to what extent encountering a textual claim that contradicts one’s prior beliefs may increase readers’ memory for the source of the information, such as the author or publication. A sample of 71 Norwegian economics and administration undergraduates were presented with texts on cell phones and potential health risks that either concluded that cell phones involve serious health risks or that they are perfectly safe. Results showed that readers’ memory for source feature information increased when the conclusion of the text contradicted the belief that cell phone use poses serious health risks but not when it contradicted the belief that cell phone use d…

READ-COGvid: A Database From Reading and Media Habits During COVID-19 Confinement in Spain and Italy

Multiple viewpoints increase students' attention to source features in social question and answer forum messages

International audience; Social question & answer forums offer great learning opportunities, but students need to evaluate the credibility of answers to avoid being misled by untrustworthy sources. This critical evaluation may be beyond the capabilities of students from primary and secondary school. We conducted 2 studies to assess how students from primary, secondary, and undergraduate education perceive and use 2 relevant credibility cues in forums: author's identity and evidence used to support his answer. Students didn't use these cues when they evaluated forums with a single answer (Experiment 1), but they recommended more often answers from self‐reported experts than from users with a …

¿Son realmente tan buenos los nativos digitales?: relación entre las habilidades digitales y la lectura digital

Digital reading literacy consists on the comprehension, use, reflection and enjoyment of written texts with the aim to fulfill our goals, to develop our knowledge and potential, and to participate in our society. Currently it is considered that “digital natives”, i.e. those students that have been raised surrounded by information technologies, poses the basic digital skills (such as using the mouse, the browser, …) required to develop digital reading skills. The present study tested this assumption, by means of a study in which students of 5th level of primary education and 3rd level of secondary education performed a series of digital reading tasks. In addition, students completed several …

Attentional biases toward emotional images in the different episodes of bipolar disorder: an eye-tracking study.

Attentional biases toward emotional information may represent vulnerability and maintenance factors in bipolar disorder (BD). The present experimental study examined the processing of emotional information in BD patients using the eye-tracking technology. Bipolar patients in their different states (euthymia, mania, depression) simultaneously viewed four pictures with different emotional valence (happy, neutral, sad, threatening) for 20 s while their eye movements were monitored. A group of healthy individuals served as the control. The data revealed the following: (i) a decrease in attention to happy images in BD patients in their depressive episodes compared to healthy individuals, and (ii…

Learning through video blogs

Previous research have found evidences of both, low traditional literacy skills (e.g. reading) and low digital literacy skills (computers and Internet skills) in the population of young students with intellectual disabilities ID). The main goal of this study was to test if learning content in the Internet was enhanced or interfered by video blog presentation mode for this population. In particular, we explored the metacognitive deficit hypothesis by Ackerman & Goldsmith [1] which predicts that a) monitoring accuracy (difference between predicted and actual comprehension) will be lower in videos than in texts; b) restudy decisions will be more efficient in the text medium (i.e. higher restud…

Effects of reading real versus print-out versions of multiple documents on students? sourcing and integrated understanding

Abstract This study investigated the extent to which students’ sourcing and comprehension can be supported by the reading of real, as opposed to print-out versions of multiple documents. It was found that the reading of real rather than print-out versions of multiple documents on the issue of climate change increased students’ memory for source information and made them include more specific references to document sources in argument essays that they wrote about the issue. In turn, such increased sourcing in essays mediated the positive effect of reading real versus print-out versions of documents on students’ construction of coherent representations of the documents’ content information. T…

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.

Critical analysis of the effects of the digital technologies on reading and learning / Análisis crítico sobre los efectos de las tecnologías digitales en la lectura y el aprendizaje

AbstractIn the digital age, the introduction of digital technologies (or information and communication technologies, ICT) in classrooms is a necessary, imperative reality. However, the educational ...

Search Interfaces and Learning about Controversial Topics

Search engine results pages (SERPs) are a frequent gateway to Internet content. Prior research has extensively documented strong effects of SERPs (e.g. rank order or the spatial distribution of the results) on users' attention to and selection of particular Web pages [1,2]. In the context of Web search, a common user behavior is the 'top link' or 'Google trust' heuristic, that is, the inspection and selection of only the first few search results presented by the search engine, without evaluating all other search results available. This heuristic behavior allows users to find information in an efficient way, as search engines tend to provide relevant documents on top of the list, especially …

IWILDS'20

Web search is one of the most ubiquitous online activities and often used for learning purposes, i.e., to extend one's knowledge or skills about certain topics or procedures. The importance of learning as an outcome of Web search has been recognized in research at the intersection of information retrieval, human-computer interaction, psychology, and educational sciences. Search as Learning (SAL) research examines relationships between querying, navigation, and reading behavior during Web search and the resulting learning outcomes, and how they can be measured, predicted, and supported. IWILDS aims to provide a platform to the interdisciplinary SAL community, with the objective to bring toge…

Inhibitory Control for Emotional and Neutral Scenes in Competition: An Eye-Tracking Study in Bipolar Disorder

This study examined the inhibitory control of attention to social scenes in manic, depressive, and euthymic episodes of bipolar disorder (BD). Two scenes were simultaneously presented (happy/threatening/neutral [target] versus control). Participants were asked either to look at the emotional pictures (i.e., attend-to-emotional block) or to avoid looking at the emotional pictures (i.e., attend-to-neutral block) while their eye movements were recorded. The initial orienting (latency and percentage of first fixation) and subsequent attentional engagement (gaze duration) were computed. Manic patients showed a higher percentage of initial fixations on happy scenes than on the other scenes, regar…

The development of adolescents' comprehension-based Internet reading activities

Abstract Internet-based reading involves integration and evaluation of information from different sources and different formats, but also requires fluent navigation skills for adequate comprehension. The effects of linguistic (word decoding and comprehension-based print reading) and non-cognitive factors (reading frequency and self-efficacy) have extensively been studied for print reading; we know very little about their role in Internet reading, which is our focus in this study. 558 students from grades 7 to 10 performed a set of comprehension-based Internet reading tasks on a computer, while their navigation and comprehension scores were recorded. They were also assessed on print reading …

Attention orienting and inhibitory control across the different mood states in bipolar disorder: An emotional antisaccade task

An antisaccade experiment, using happy, sad, and neutral faces, was conducted to examine the effect of mood-congruent information on inhibitory control (antisaccade task) and attentional orienting (prosaccade task) during the different episodes of bipolar disorder (BD) - manic (n=22), depressive (n=25), and euthymic (n=24). A group of 28 healthy controls was also included. Results revealed that symptomatic patients committed more antisaccade errors than healthy individuals, especially with mood-congruent faces. The manic group committed more antisaccade errors in response to happy faces, while the depressed group tended to commit more antisaccade errors in response to sad faces. Additionall…

Technology for supporting web information search and learning in Sign Language

Sign Languages (SL) are underrepresented in the digital world, which contributes to the digital divide for the Deaf Community. In this paper, our goal is twofold: (1) to review the implications of current SL generation technologies for two key user web tasks, information search and learning and (2) to propose a taxonomy of the technical and functional dimensions for categorizing those technologies. The review reveals that although contents can currently be portrayed in SL by means of videos of human signers or avatars, the debate about how bilingual (text and SL) versus SL-only websites affect signers' comprehension of hypertext content emerges as an unresolved issue in need of further empi…

Information structure and practice as facilitators of deaf users' navigation in textual websites

Deaf users might find it difficult to navigate through websites with textual content which, for many of them, constitutes the written representation of a non-native oral language. With the aim of testing how the information structure could compensate for this difficulty, 27 prelingual deaf users of sign language were asked to search a set of headlines in a web newspaper where information structure and practice were manipulated. While practice did not affect deep structures (web content distributed through four layers of nodes), wide structures (web content concentrated in two layers) did facilitate users' performance in the last trial block and compromised it in the first trial block. It is…

Instrucción de estrategias de lectura digital mediante modelado por video

Los resultados de las pruebas de evaluación internacionales indican que las habilidades de lectura digital de nuestros adolescentes están por debajo de la media de los países de la OCDE. Este es el punto de partida del presente estudio, que analiza la efectividad de un programa de instrucción basado en la técnica del modelado por video a partir de movimientos oculares o EMMEs para la enseñanza de las estrategias de lectura en entornos digitales a un grupo de estudiantes de secundaria. Los resultados muestran que en términos generales los estudiantes que participaron en este programa aprendieron estrategias de lectura digital como la necesidad de planificar la búsqueda y la lectura, evaluar …

The Role of Sourcing in Discourse Comprehension

This chapter provides a theoretical background by discussing different frameworks relevant for understanding the role of sourcing in discourse comprehension. It reviews empirical work on students' sourcing skills and the role of individual and contextual factors in sourcing and discusses the nature and particular challenges of sourcing in digital contexts and review research on sourcing in such contexts. The chapter analyses intervention work aiming to improve students' consideration and evaluation of source features when dealing with multiple documents and also reviews measures used to assess sourcing skills in the research literature. Developmental psychology research on social cognition …

Instruction of Digital Reading Strategies Based on Eye-Movements Modeling Examples

During the last decade, several studies have proposed and tested different instructional methods for teaching digital reading strategies to young students. In this study, we have tested the effectiveness of a program combining eye-movements modeling examples (EMMEs) and contrasting cases to instruct ninth-grade students how to plan, evaluate, and monitor their digital reading. EMMEs are videos that display a dot representing the eye movements of a model and an oral transcription of her thoughts while answering a specific question in a hypertext. Students in the EMME condition obtain higher comprehension scores in a posttest performed 1 week after the instruction, as compared with a control…

Searching the Web for conflicting topics: Page and user factors

Web users tend to search only the pages displayed at the top of the search engine results page (the 'top link' heuristic). Although it might be reasonable to use this heuristic to navigate simple and unambiguous facts, it might be risky when searching for conflicting socio-scientific topics, such as potential measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In the present study, we explored the extent to which students consider other Web page characteristics, such as topic relevance and trustworthiness, when searching and bookmarking pages concerning a conflicting topic. We also examined the extent to which prior background knowledge moderates students' behavior. The results revealed that while…

Comprehension effects of signalling relationships between documents in search engines

A key task for students learning about a complex topic from multiple documents on the web is to establish the existing rhetorical relations between the documents. Traditional search engines such as Google(R) display the search results in a listed format, without signalling any relationship between the documents retrieved. New search engines such as Kartoo(R) go a step further, displaying the results as a constellation of documents, in which the existing relations between pages are made explicit. This presentation format is based on previous studies of single-text comprehension, which demonstrate that providing a graphical overview of the text contents and their relation boosts readers' comp…

Investigating effects of reading medium and reading purpose on behavioral engagement and textual integration in a multiple text context

Abstract The study addressed to what extent behavioral engagement and textual integration may differ when undergraduate readers work with identical printed versus digital texts in preparation for an exam versus for pleasure. We expected that working with printed texts would lead to greater engagement and better integration than working with digital texts, but that reading purpose would moderate this effect of reading medium because those reading in preparation for an exam would display greater engagement and better integration regardless of reading medium. Results showed interaction effects of reading medium with reading purpose on the behavioral engagement indicators of reading time and th…

Attentional capture by emotional scenes across episodes in bipolar disorder: Evidence from a free-viewing task

We examined whether the initial orienting, subsequent engagement, and overall allocation of attention are determined exogenously (i.e. by the affective valence of the stimulus) or endogenously (i.e. by the participant's mood) in the manic, depressive and euthymic episodes of bipolar disorder (BD). Participants were asked to compare the affective valence of two pictures (happy/threatening/neutral [emotional] vs. neutral [control]) while their eye movements were recorded in a free-viewing task. Results revealed that the initial orienting was exogenously captured by emotional images relative to control images. Importantly, engagement and overall allocation were endogenously captured by threate…

Reading skills and children’s navigation strategies in hypertext

Prior research has identified two important navigation strategies that have a clear impact on hypertext comprehension: link selection and overview processing strategies. The first relate to the order in which students select hyperlinks while trying to comprehend a hypertext, whereas the second relate to when and for how long students process navigation overviews, a text device that conveys the text structure by displaying sections, titles and their relations. Most prior research in navigation strategies has been conducted with undergraduate students. We extend prior research by exploring the navigation strategies used by sixth-graders while reading a hypermedia system. We also investigate h…

Selection and evaluation of Internet information by adults with intellectual disabilities

Internet offers people with intellectual disabilities (ID) unique opportunities to access information and to participate in society. But concerns have been raised about the potential risks they face when accessing the Internet (e.g. giving credit to false information, being exposed to manipulative content). As part of the current debate between positive risk-taking and overprotection, our study empirically tested the extent to which 43 adults with ID identified and selected topically relevant as well as trustworthy web pages while searching the Internet for several topics (e.g. Can social networks use your pictures for advertisement?). Participants also justified their search decisions. Res…

Fostering teenagers' assessment of information reliability: Effects of a classroom intervention focused on critical source dimensions

International audience; Increased amounts of information available from the Internet have triggered new demands for students to evaluate information quality. Our study presents an instructional intervention aimed at fostering ninth grade students' critical evaluation of source reliability. The intervention was grounded into theories of multiple text comprehension and used an analytic framework that defines the core source dimensions of author position (competence), author motivation (intention), and media quality (pre-publication validation). Compared to controls, trained students 1) reduced the score assigned to links containing less reliable information in the three critical source dimens…

How Good Is This Page? Benefits and Limits of Prompting on Adolescents’ Evaluation of Web Information Quality

International audience; The present study examined adolescents' detection of features that affect the quality of Web information. In Experiment 1, participants (12-16 years old) rated the goodness/usefulness of four Web-like documents for a simulated study assignment. Each document came with an issue that potentially undermined its quality. Two documents had source-related issues (i.e., non-competent author, outdated) and two had content-related issues (i.e., topic mismatch, poor readability). Most students failed to notice the issues, including topic mismatch. The participants also produced inconsistent evaluations of topic-match, readability, author competence and currency. In Experiment …

Using eye-movement modelling examples to improve critical reading of multiple webpages on a conflicting topic

This project investigates the effects of an EMME intervention on undergraduates' sourcing when reading conflicting multiple texts on the Internet. Dependent variables: eye-movements on SERP, webs header, texts authors, and texts; use of source information in summaries; ideas from texts in summaries.

Integrating digital documents by means of concept maps: testing an intervention program with eye-movements modelling examples

When using the Internet to learn about a curricular topic students face the challenge of not only understanding each single document, but also of integrating the ideas in a combined representation. Several intervention studies have tested instructional methods, such as building concept maps, aimed at teaching integration of multiple documents to Secondary education and older students. However, building a concept map may be demanding for learners and requires competencies to build maps in an appropriate way. In the current study we explore the extent to which such integration processes relying a concept map mapping instruction can be efficiently taught to 6th grade students. Specifically, we…

Scanning and deep processing of information in hypertext: an eye tracking and cued retrospective think-aloud study

When students solve problems on the Internet, they have to find a balance between quickly scanning large sections of information in web pages and deeply processing those that are relevant for the task. We studied how high school students articulate scanning and deeper processing of information while answering questions using a Wikipedia document, and how their reading comprehension skills and the question type interact with these processes. By analyzing retrospective think-aloud protocols and eye-tracking measures, we found that scanning of information led to poor hypertext comprehension, while deep processing of information produced better performance, especially in location questions. Thi…

Training young adults with intellectual disability to read critically on the internet.

Background Young people with intellectual disability (ID) are becoming frequent Internet users, but they present difficulties selecting reliable Internet sources. Methods The present authors tested an instructional programme aimed at increasing skills to evaluate information from the Internet of 33 young adult students with intellectual disability enrolled in special needs education (19.4 years). The programme was composed of different web pages that provided conflicting views on a controversial topic. Students participated in small group discussions supported with Wh-question graphic organizers and contrasting cases during seven sessions. Results Differences between pre- and post-tests ind…

Children's Reading of Printed Text and Hypertext with Navigation Overviews: The Role of Comprehension, Sustained Attention, and Visuo-Spatial Abilities

Hypertexts include new structural features, such as navigable graphical overviews, that dramatically change the way students interact with texts. Nevertheless, at school students traditionally practice literacy skills appropriate for reading and comprehending printed texts. We explored the possibility that those skills might not be the same as the ones required to master hypertext reading. Specifically, we tested the hypothesis that hypertext structural features, such as navigable graphical overviews, might scaffold students with low comprehension and sustained-attention abilities, but demand higher involvement of visuo-spatial skills. Results from a group of 6th-grade students only partia…

Corrigendum to “Attention orienting and inhibitory control across the different mood states in bipolar disorder: An emotional antisaccade task” [Biol. Psychol. 94 (3) (2013) 556–561]

Don't throw away your printed books: A meta-analysis on the effects of reading media on reading comprehension

Abstract With the increasing dominance of digital reading over paper reading, gaining understanding of the effects of the medium on reading comprehension has become critical. However, results from research comparing learning outcomes across printed and digital media are mixed, making conclusions difficult to reach. In the current meta-analysis, we examined research in recent years (2000–2017), comparing the reading of comparable texts on paper and on digital devices. We included studies with between-participants (n = 38) and within-participants designs (n = 16) involving 171,055 participants. Both designs yielded the same advantage of paper over digital reading (Hedge's g = −0.21; dc = −0.2…

Does reading medium affect processing and integration of textual and pictorial information? A multimedia eye-tracking study

Abstract This study investigated effects of reading medium (print vs. digital) on integrative processing and integrated understanding of an illustrated text on human sexuality, as well as whether reading medium indirectly affected integrated understanding via integrative processing. Participants were 100 undergraduate and graduate students in educational sciences. Integrative processing was indicated by participants’ gaze transitions between complementary textual and pictorial parts of the document during reading, and integrated understanding was indicated by participants’ integration of textual and pictorial information in post-reading written responses. Results showed that participants wh…

El libro no ha muerto: Desventaja meta-cognitiva de la lectura en pantalla

A pesar de la rápida expansión de los dispositivos digitales como medio de lectura, el formato impreso sigue siendo el preferido por la mayoría de los lectores. Más aún, investigaciones recientes revelan cierta desventaja del medio digital cuando se trata de comprender textos. En el presente artículo se revisan una serie de trabajos realizados por la investigadora Rakefet Ackerman y sus colaboradores, cuyos resultados sugieren que esta inferioridad de la lectura en pantalla es consecuencia de déficits en la regulación meta-cognitiva cuando nos enfrentamos mediante el medio digital a tareas que exigen decisiones acerca de la asignación de esfuerzos cognitivos.

The inattentive on-screen reading: Reading medium affects attention and reading comprehension under time pressure

This study explored the influence of reading media and reading time-frame on readers' on-task attention, metacognitive calibration, and reading comprehension. One hundred and forty undergraduates were allocated to one of four experimental conditions varying on the reading medium (in print vs. on screen) and on the reading time-frame (free vs. pressured time). Readers' mindwandering while reading, prediction of performance on a comprehension test, and their text comprehension were measured. In-print readers, but not on-screen readers, mindwandered less on the pressured than in the free time condition, indicating higher task adaptation in print. Accordingly, on-screen readers in the pressured…

¿Por qué realizar un examen mejora nuestro aprendizaje? Lecciones científicas y educativas del efecto del test

Los exámenes se consideran como una mera evaluación del conocimiento del estudiante, y hasta el momento no se habían planteado seriamente como estrategia de aprendizaje. No en vano, los modelos tradicionales de la memoria humana consideran que los procesos de codificación son los máximos responsables del registro de información en memoria. Los procesos de recuperación, que se activan durante la realización de un examen, no deberían afectar a la información recuperada. Investigaciones recientes contradicen esta visión, y aportan nueva evidencia de cómo funciona nuestra memoria: realizar un examen sobre algo aprendido mejora nuestro aprendizaje de ese tema.

Incivility in online news and Twitter: effects on attitudes toward scientific topics when reading in a second language

Due to the participatory nature of Web 2.0, polite communication on social media and news sites can stand side by side with uncivil comments. Research on online incivility has been conducted with users reading in their mother tongues (L1), while the potential effects of incivility in a second language (L2) have been largely under- explored. This paper analyzes the effects of uncivil comments written in an L2 on attitudes around emerging technologies. Accordingly, study 1 replicates and extends a previous experiment on the effects of incivility to online news on risk perceptions of nanotechnology (Anderson et al., 2014), by adding an ‘L2 condition’ (uncivil comments written in an L2). Then, …

Self-Regulation and Link Selection Strategies in Hypertext

This article explores the role of self-regulation in strategies that readers use to decide the order in which to read the different sections of a hypertext. This study explored 3 main strategies for link selection based on (a) link screen position, (b) link interest, and (c) the semantic relation of a link with the section just read. This study followed Winne's (1995, 2001) model of self-regulated learning to try to explain why some readers select hyperlinks based on strategies that lead to lower levels of comprehension (i.e., screen position and personal interest). Results from 2 studies revealed that readers with low prior knowledge base their decisions on what to read next on a default s…