Multiple Source Comprehension: Sources of Complexity and What Students Need to Know and Be Able to Do

• In Event: Situating the “Who” in Multiple Source Use: What Do Learners’ Characteristics Reveal About Online Processing?

Abstract

Objectives and Theoretical Frame

This presentation synthesizes findings from several collaborative research projects aimed at understanding how learners engage with multiple sources of information, accessed via the internet or through traditional print sources, to address students’ processing and performance when responding to complex inquiry questions that cannot be answered by simply “googling” the question (Braasch et al., 2009; Burkett, et al., 2013; Goldman, Braasch, Wiley, Graesser, & Brodowinska, 2012; Goldman, Lawless, & Manning, 2013; Wiley et al., 2009). The objectives of the synthesis and the presentation are to highlight the cognitive and motivational requirements of these kinds of complex comprehension and learning tasks, to identify which of these seem most problematic for students, and to describe a conceptual framework for designing instruction that addresses these sources of complexity.
The projects on which the synthesis is based approach multiple source comprehension from a socio-cognitive perspective: To be successful at inquiry tasks that involve multiple sources, learners to be draw on their specific topic knowledge but also on their knowledge of the normative disciplinary practices of sense-making, including what counts as evidence for specific explanatory claims. Learners need to approach texts with a repertoire of cognitive strategies and dispositional orientations for engaging in analysis, synthesis, and interpretation of meaning from individual texts and comparing and contrasting these analyses across sources.

Methods and Results

The data from these projects are quantitative (e.g., reading time, navigation logs, concepts included in essays) and qualitative (e.g., think-alouds, short-answer constructed responses, and rubric scoring of essays) collected in experimental and quasi-experimental designs. Participants were selected to know relatively little about the topics used in the studies and include upper elementary, high school, and college undergraduate samples. Topics were drawn from social and behavioral sciences and the natural sciences. The synthesis references data indicating that students who perform well relative to those who perform less-well on essays, sourcing, and source reliability judgments differentially focus processing time on relevant and reliable information rather than on less relevant and unreliable information; elaborate and self-explain reliable information more so than unreliable; read websites of reliable sources more completely than of unreliable sources; leave sources of information with new goals for further reading; select sources for further investigation based on content relevance and author information, as opposed to simply content relevance.
Currently, we are exploring possible mechanisms including knowledge of, and interest in, the topic and discipline-related epistemology that may explain why some students engage with multiple sources in these ways but others do not.

Conclusions and Scholarly Significance

Discussion will focus on design-based research efforts to implement instruction that provides opportunities for students to develop what we are currently researching as possible mechanisms to explain epistemological and reading comprehension strategies and dispositions that underlie the observed processing and performance outcome differences. This work is important because it addresses efforts to improve the readiness for college and career of pre-college students living in a society that requires proficiency in problem solving and learning with multiple, complex, and multimodal sources of information.

Author

• Susan R. Goldman, University of Illinois at Chicago