The Interplay of Navigation and Text Processing in Digital Reading Performance

• In Event: Perspectives on PISA (Programme for International Student Assessment) Reading

Abstract

Reading digital text is cognitively distinct from reading printed text. This is because besides accurate and efficient reading processes, a number of additional cognitive demands are posed. Prominent among these is navigation, meaning the self-guided and goal-directed selection and ordering of information from a non-linear digital text with blurred boundaries. Few studies though have systematically investigated the interaction of text processing and navigation. This paper presents results from the PISA 2009 Digital Reading Assessment, showing that text processing and navigation skill each contribute to explaining digital reading performance. Four models are tested that describe the interplay of text processing and navigation in digital reading using PISA 2009 Digital Reading Assessment data: The side-effects model, the independent model, the partial mediation model, and the moderation model. The side-effects model assumes that associations of navigation and digital reading performance occur because good navigation occurs as a ‘side-effect’ in skilled readers, but is not functionally related to digital reading performance. The independent model assumes that navigation is functionally related to digital reading performance, but not to text processing skill, so that both text processing and navigation independently contribute to digital reading performance. The partial mediation model assumes that good navigation requires text processing skill. Thus, according to this model, text processing skill predicts navigation, which in turn predicts digital reading performance. Since the text that is ‘created’ through navigation has to be understood eventually, an additional direct effect of text processing skill on digital reading performance is assumed. Finally, the moderation model assumes that the effect of navigation on digital reading performance will be conditional on text processing skill, since good navigation will benefit comprehension of digital text only if good text processing skills are present. The results are in favour of the partial mediation model, and inconsistent with the side-effects and the independent model. Tests of the indirect effect of text processing skill on digital reading through navigation revealed significant indirect effects in each country, ranging from 0.21 (SE=0.01) to 0.50 (SE=0.02) in the metric of the PISA reading scale. On average, the indirect effect was 0.36 (SE=0.01). The direct effect of text processing skill on digital reading performance was 0.31 (SE=0.01). While there was strong evidence for the partial mediation model, only sparse evidence was found for the moderation model. In eight out of 19 countries, interactions between navigation and text processing skill were observed. These effects however were weak, accounting for less than 0.1% of variance. The results presented here indicate that the mediation model is the best model to describe the interplay between text processing skill and navigation in digital reading.. About half of the total effect of text processing skill on digital reading proved to be a direct effect independent from navigation, and the other half an indirect effect transmitted through navigation. Thus, navigation is not a process that is independent from text processing. Rather, to navigate proficiently and thus read well in the digital medium, students have to be good at processing text in the first place.

Author

• Johannes Naumann, The German Institute for International Educational Research