The Role of Texts' Interestingness and Comprehensibility in Students' Strategy Use When Learning From Multiple Texts

• In Event: What We Read and How We Understand: Text Structure, Comprehension, and Spatial Reasoning

Abstract

This study examines the effects of texts’ interestingness and comprehensibility on students’ strategy use and comprehension when learning from multiple texts. Building on prior correlational work, this study systematically manipulates texts’ interestingness and difficulty by varying topics (i.e., marijuana legalization or the home mortgage interest deduction) and vocabulary (i.e., difficult vs. easy vocabulary). In addition to these manipulations, students were also asked to self-report interest (triggered by texts’ features) and comprehension during reading. Students’ reports of strategy use during reading were also coded for. Students used more vocabulary-focused strategies (e.g., looking up words, using context clues) in the difficult text condition. Moreover, more interesting and easy texts were found to result in improved comprehension performance.

Authors

• Hye Yeon Lee, The Pennsylvania State University

• Alexandra List, The Pennsylvania State University