Exploring the Collaborative Synthesis of Information During Online Reading

This descriptive study sought to understand the complexities of integrative processing during collaborative online reading. Student pairs constructed a collaborative understanding while reading online information about a controversial issue by connecting, combining and organizing information that originated from prior knowledge, self-selected online texts, and discussions during an online inquiry task. Thirty-eight students from an upper secondary school in Finland worked in pairs to read online information and write an essay with the help of an argument graph tool. Primary data sources consisted of: prior knowledge; discussions; notes recorded with a graphic representational tool; video ca…

Online Research and Comprehension Performance Profiles Among Sixth-Grade Students, Including Those with Reading Difficulties and/or Attention and Executive Function Difficulties

This study identified online research and comprehension (ORC) performance profiles of 436 sixth-grade students (206 girls) aged 12–13 years. We included learner groups with different learning-related difficulties and explored how students’ reading habits were represented in various performance profiles. First, students’ ORC performance was examined with a validated web-based assessment measuring their skills in locating, evaluating, synthesizing, and communicating information. Second, reading fluency and teacher-rated attention and executive function (EF) difficulty scores were used to form learner groups: (1) students with reading difficulties, (2) students with attention and EF difficulti…

Exploring the collaborative synthesis of information during online reading

Abstract This descriptive study sought to understand the complexities of integrative processing during collaborative online reading. Student pairs constructed a collaborative understanding while reading online information about a controversial issue by connecting, combining and organizing information that originated from prior knowledge, self-selected online texts, and discussions during an online inquiry task. Thirty-eight students from an upper secondary school in Finland worked in pairs to read online information and write an essay with the help of an argument graph tool. Primary data sources consisted of: prior knowledge; discussions; notes recorded with a graphic representational tool;…

Exploring early adolescents’ evaluation of academic and commercial online resources related to health

This study assessed the ability of 426 students (ages 12–13) to critically evaluate two types of online locations on health issues: an academic resource and a commercial resource. The results indicated limited evaluation abilities, especially for the commercial resource, and only a small, partial association with prior stance and offline reading ability. Only about half (51.4%) of the students questioned the credibility of the commercial online resource and only about 19% of the students showed an ability to fully recognize commercial bias. Wide variation existed in students’ ability to evaluate online information, as approximately one-fourth of the students performed poorly when evaluating…

Working on understanding during collaborative online reading

This study examines how students in Finland (16-18 years of age) constructed meaning and knowledge in a collaborative online reading situation. Student pairs ( n = 19) were asked to write a joint essay on a controversial issue. First, the pairs discussed the topic freely to activate their prior knowledge. Next, they gathered source material on the Internet. Finally, they composed a joint essay. The data were collected using an interaction approach to verbal protocol data, along with video screen captures. In the analysis, three units were employed: episodes ( n = 562) for describing online reading practices; utterances ( n = 944) for identifying collaborative reading strategies; and collab…

Reading to Learn From Online Information: Modeling the Factor Structure

Identifying the factor structure of online reading to learn is important for the development of theory, assessment, and instruction. Traditional comprehension models have been developed from, and for, offline reading. This study used online reading to determine an optimal factor structure for modeling online research and comprehension among 426 sixth graders (ages 12 and 13). Confirmatory factor analysis was employed to evaluate an assessment of online research and comprehension based on a widely referenced theoretical model. Student performance reflected the theoretical constructs of the model, but several additional constructs appeared, resulting in a six-factor model: (a) locating infor…

Individual differences in the new literacies of online research and comprehension