Students Integrating Information From Multiple Texts: Do Reading Fluency and Behavioral Engagement Matter?

• In Event: Becoming Literate: Cognitive and Social Processes of Learning to Read

Abstract

This study investigated how upper secondary school students (N=89) integrated information when engaging in a multiple texts literacy task and whether students’ reading fluency and behavioral engagement in reading and writing were associated with their integration performance. Students read and evaluated two more and two less credible online texts about vitamin supplements, after which they wrote a short magazine article. Many students struggled with integration. Only 14% of the students included all three accurate main claims of the source texts in their article, and one-fourth did not engage in intratextual or intertextual integration. Finally, source-source integration was even more scarce. Notably, the more students were behaviorally engaged in reading and, in particular, writing, the better they performed in integration.

Authors

• Elina K. Hämäläinen, University of Jyväskylä

• Carita Kiili, Tampere University