Processing Strategies to Support Understanding of Multiple Texts

• In Event: Text(s) Comprehension: Learner Factors, Processes, and Supports

Abstract

Comprehending multiple texts is challenging and key to academic success. As such, one important objective is to identify comprehension strategies that foster readers’ understanding of information from multiple texts. In the current study, we examined the effectiveness of self-explanation and source-evaluation for enhancing 80 undergraduate readers’ comprehension of multiple texts about global warming and their memory for sources. The results showed that self-explanation fostered better overall comprehension compared to source-evaluation or thinking aloud. However, source-evaluation improved memory for sources compared to both self-explanation and thinking aloud. Overall, these results suggest that self-explanation may provide an effective strategy for improving multiple-text comprehension overall, whereas source-evaluation may improve readers’ memory for who said what.

Authors

• Cecile Perret, Arizona State University

• Reese Butterfuss, Arizona State University

• Danielle S. McNamara, Arizona State University