More Than (Single) Text Comprehension? – On University Students’ Understanding of Multiple Documents

The digital revolution has made a multitude of text documents from highly diverse perspectives on almost any topic easily available. Accordingly, the ability to integrate and evaluate information from different sources, known as multiple document comprehension, has become increasingly important. Because multiple document comprehension requires the integration of content and source information across texts, it is assumed to exceed the demands of single text comprehension due to the inclusion of two additional mental representations: the integrated situation model and the intertext model. To date, there is little empirical evidence on commonalities and differences between single text and mult…