Can Navigation Help Students Read and Learn From Multiple Online Sources in a Generative Writing Task? A Path-Model Study

• In Event: Synergy of Reading and Writing Within Multiple Source Tasks: Novel Approaches and Innovative Techniques

Abstract

Objective
The purpose of this exploratory study was to examine how the process of navigation (i.e., Constructively Responsive Navigation, CRN) can support students' learning from multiple online sources (reading space) for the generation of a critical question (writing space).

Theoretical Framework
A reason why people read on the Internet is to explore controversies and formulate informed questions about the relevant issues and problems. During this kind of online reading, goal-relevant information navigation in response to shifting textual environment is critical for identifying, integrating, and evaluating multiple online sources (Britt & Aglinskas, 2002; Afflerbach & Cho, 2010; Naumann, 2015; Salmerón & Garcia, 2011).
In this study, a model of CRN was tested in relation to a question-generation writing task in an online setting. Desirable navigation processes result when readers are able to complete a generative writing task while also responding to the evolving textual environment, within which they have to manage numerous sources of varying quality. In the CRN model, any episode of generative reading (i.e., reading for writing) on the Internet requires monitoring and coordinating navigation processes across sites and texts and accessing texts that are useful for completing the generative task. Effective navigation behaviors—searching for task-specific information and responding to the text context that readers are encountering—result in greater learning about the topic, which in turn enables more critical discussion and engagement.

Method
High schoolers (n=268) were given an unfamiliar social issue—mountaintop-removal coal mining—and had 30 minutes to research this issue online in order to answer topic-knowledge questions and write a critical question with justification (Cho et al., 2017). Using a path model, the relations among online navigation processes, the text-environment, and learner characteristics, along with general demographic variables were examined.

Results
The principal findings were twofold. First, specific Internet navigation behaviors predicted success on the reading-writing task (i.e., online reading for critical questioning) over and above the more general academic variables like GPA and grade level. Namely, both task-specific searches (i.e., pertaining to mountain top coal removal rather than more general information on mining or the environment), and context-responsive searches (i.e., responding to the dearth of pro-MTR material by searching for those missing perspectives) predicted post-test topic knowledge. In turn, post-test topic knowledge predicted the quality of critical questions that students wrote.

Significance
Being a digitally literate learner involves more than just being a good student in general. It also requires the ability to search for and locate information in response to a given task, such as question generation, and to integrate of information across documents. More broadly, analysis in this study provided general support for the CRN model—metacognitive navigation in response to the reading task and the shifting text environment—particularly in constructing critical questions.

Authors

• Byeong-Young Cho, Hanyang University

• Scott H. Fraundorf, University of Pittsburgh