Reading in Print and Digitally: Profiling and Intervening in Undergraduates’ Multimodal Text Processing, Comprehension, and Calibration

• In Event: Saturday Roundtable Session 3:05 pm
  In Roundtable Session: Positioning Teachers for Innovations in Literacy Learning (Table 34)

Abstract

This two-experiment study explored differences in performance when students read digital and print texts. In Study I, 70 undergraduates read digital and print passages from an introductory geology textbook. Comprehension and Judgment of Performance measures revealed that students performed better and spent more time when reading in print. Based on latent class analysis, three clusters were identified for both the print and digital data. In Study II, 65 participants from Study I took part in a 30-minute intervention meant to improve comprehension and calibration. Students read and answered questions on a text about volcanoes that paralleled prior readings. Participants’ comprehension scores and reading duration were significantly improved over Study 1 performance. However, their calibration accuracy decreased.

Authors

• Lauren M. Singer Trakhman, University of Maryland

• Patricia A. Alexander, University of Maryland

• Jannah Fusenig, University of Maryland