Identifying How Comprehension Strategy Use Is Affected by Instructional Prompts, Education Levels, and Text Domain (Poster 4)

• In Event: Leveraging Constructed Responses to Understand Text Comprehension

Abstract

1. Objectives. Reading comprehension strategies provide valuable insights into cognitive processes underlying comprehension (e.g., Author, 2009). These strategies include paraphrasing (restating text content), bridging (connecting text content), and elaboration (introducing extratextual ideas; Author, 2004). CRs have been used to reveal the propensity to engage in these strategies (e.g., Authors, 2011). However many studies typically report data on the relative frequency in which these strategies occur (i.e., reporting data on aggregate measures of the individual strategies) while ignoring how these strategies may operate in combination. This poster will report data reflecting an important insight of the research team that strategies occur in combinations, and that how they occur in combination is reflective of individual differences, instructional prompts, and study context.

2. Perspectives. Theories of constructed response assure that the strategies occur in combination and strategy interventions emphasize this phase (Author, 2004), nonetheless few studies have explored how they operate together and what contextual factors (individual, task, context) affect them.

3. Method. The qualitative strategy rubric described in Poster 1 was used in this study. Strategies in isolation represented single strategy use independent of the other strategies (e.g., frequency of paraphrase irrespective of bridging or elaboration use). Strategy combinations represented strategy co-occurrence of the focal strategies (paraphrasing, bridging, elaboration), distinguishing between single strategy use in a CR (e.g., paraphrase only) and two or more strategies in a CR (e.g., paraphrasing-bridging). The frequency of strategy use was examined across all CRs grouped by population (education level, e.g., high school students, undergraduates, etc.), task instruction (self-explain, other-explain, think aloud), and text domain (science, history).

4. Data Sources. Expert raters scored over 23,000 CRs from more than 1,500 participants from six archival datasets. Using the Self-Explanation Scoring Rubric, CRs were scored for the presence of comprehension monitoring and misconceptions (i.e., textual misunderstandings) as well as the focal strategies of paraphrasing, bridging, and elaboration.

5. Results. Strategy use differed across instructional prompt, educational level, and domain. Nevertheless, paraphrasing and bridging emerged as the most commonly used strategies, with paraphrasing occurring independently or as a combined strategy in paraphrasing-bridging. While these analyses are only descriptive, the strategy use patterns suggest that focusing on textual content via paraphrasing and bridging may be more effective and indicative of stronger reading skills, as less skilled populations of readers displayed a wider use of comprehension strategies.

6. Significance. This study provides an initial description of this rich dataset scored using a single rubric, to better understand how strategy use varies across populations and contexts. It has important implications for theories of comprehension (Authors, 2009b) and theories of CRs (Authors, 2009a), and implications for interventions that emphasize strategy instruction (Author, 2004).

Authors

• Natalie Newton, Arizona State University
  Presenting Author

• Katerina Christhilf, Arizona State University
  Non-Presenting Author