Domain-Specific Multiple Text Comprehension

• In Event: Motivation and Language Arts

Abstract

Reader-generated inferences play a crucial role in text comprehension. This study investigated how higher, moderate, and lower prior knowledge (PK) readers generated inferences while reading multiple texts about physics. Higher PK readers (PhD students in physics) constructed inferences across the texts and to an underlying physics principle (gravity). Moderate and lower PK readers connected ideas across texts, but they focused on surface-level features of the text. Further, the moderate PK readers, who were all graduate students, used more sophisticated techniques to analyze the texts than the lower PK readers, who were all undergraduates. Overall, these results suggest that readers use different approaches when reading to interpret texts in domain-specific and domain-general ways, depending on their academic development.

Authors

• Matthew T. McCrudden, The Pennsylvania State University

• Jonna M. Kulikowich, The Pennsylvania State University

• Ashwin Mohan, The Pennsylvania State University

• Linh T. Huynh, Arizona State University

• Bailing Lyu, The Pennsylvania State University