Locating Discrete Information in Text: Effects of Computer Presentation and Menu Formatting

McGoldrick, Jacqueline A.; Bergering, Anthony J.; Martin, Jack; Symons, Sonya

doi:10.1080/10862969209547760

Cited by 8 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 16 publications

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“…But for both kinds of task, students were more successful if they were prompted to engage in planning before they started their search. Other research confirms the difficulties college students experience in the search of textbooks (e.g., McGoldrick, Martin, Bergering, & Symons, 1992;Yussen, Stright, & Payne, 1993 ) and in the search of documents such as plane schedules and pay stubs (Guthrie, 1988; and tables (Guthrie, Britten, & Barker, 1991). Thus, these and other studies indicate that many adults perform at less than optimal levels on reading to locate tasks.…”

supporting

confidence: 50%

Fifth Graders' Search for Information in a Textbook

Dreher

Sammons

1994

Journal of Reading Behavior

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Fifty-nine fifth graders were asked to use an unfamiliar textbook on a familiar topic to locate the answers to three questions, all of which contained terms that could be found in the book's index. Those who were randomly assigned to a condition in which they were asked guiding questions before and during their search were more successful than their counterparts who were simply asked to search. An examination of the information access structures (e.g., index, table of contents) used by students indicated that those who were unsuccessful relied heavily on the table of contents and/or paging through the text despite the very specific nature of the questions. The facilitating effect of the guiding questions appears to have been due to raising the likelihood that students would think of and actually use the index during their search; index use did not guarantee success, but very few students who failed to use the index were successful.A search task is type of strategic reading that occurs when readers seek specific, goal-related information. In this type of reading, the goal is not to read a book from cover to cover or to learn the contents of a chapter for a test. Instead, readers engaged in search tasks might look up a fact in a reference book, consult a manual for instructions on fixing a leaky faucet, or locate phone numbers of catering services in the Yellow Pages. In other words, readers engaged in search tasks would want to avoid irrelevant information while targeting critical portions. To do this, they might use one or more information-access features, such as an index or table of contents, to go directly to a needed bit of information, disregarding the rest.Search tasks are common workplace and school demands (Dreher, 1993). In the workplace, adults spend more time reading to locate information than reading 301 302 Journal of Reading Behaviorfor any other purpose (e.g., Guthrie, Schäfer, & Hutchinson, 1991;Guthrie, Seifert, & Kirsch, 1986;Kirsch & Guthrie, 1984;Mikulecky, 1982). And in school, students in both elementary (e.g., Armbruster & Armstrong, 1993;Armbruster & Gudbrandsen, 1986) and secondary schools (e.g., Smith & Feathers, 1983) are expected to engage in search tasks ranging from locating a single fact for answering a question to locating and synthesizing information for a report.Yet research indicates that many adults have difficulty with search tasks. The National Assessment of Educational Progress survey of literacy in young adults aged 21 to 25 indicated that most were able to locate a single piece of information in prose or documents, but that performance dropped off sharply as task complexity rose (Kirsch & Jungeblut, 1986). Ninety-seven percent, for example, could locate a piece of information in a newspaper article. But only 37% were able to answer a question that required the location of three pieces of information. Similarly, Dreher and Guthrie (1990) found that high school students were successful in locating the definition of a single term in a textbook. Only about half these...

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supporting

confidence: 50%

Fifth Graders' Search for Information in a Textbook

Dreher

Sammons

1994

Journal of Reading Behavior

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“…Dreher and Guthrie (1987; see also Guthrie & Dreher, 1990) found that many college students exhibited a haphazard sequence of choices in a textbook-chapter search task. Furthermore, these students often did not extract the needed information even when they located an appropriate text page (see McGoldrick, Martin, Bergering, & Symons, 1992, for similar results).…”

mentioning

confidence: 81%

“…This model has been empirically tested in studies using materials such as plane schedules, pay stubs (Guthrie, 1988; Guthrie & Dreher, 1990), and tables (Guthrie, Britten, & Barker, 1991). It has also been applied to locating information in textbooks (Dreher & Guthrie, 1990; Guthrie & Dreher, 1990; McGoldrick et al, 1992; Symons & Pressley, 1993).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Planning prompts and indexed terms in textbook search tasks.

Dreher¹,

Brown²

1993

Journal of Educational Psychology

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Text search is a type of strategic reading that involves locating specific goal-relevant information. Previous research has indicated that college and high school students often exhibit inefficient or unsuccessful text-search performance. Consequently, the effects of 2 manipulations on text-search performance were investigated: (a) the presence of indexed terms in a text-search task and (b) the use of a planning prompt before beginning a task. Thirty-four college students engaged in 6 text-search tasks. Half of these tasks contained terms that could be used in an index; half required that a search term be generated. Half of the subjects were randomly assigned to a prompt condition in which they were prompted to plan their search before beginning each task. The results indicated that a planning prompt raised the success level of search performance, as did the presence of terms that were searchable in the textbook's index.An office worker needs to locate a particular command in a word processing manual or on a pop-up "help" menu on a computer screen. A student seeks information from an encyclopedia on types of viruses. A travel agent uses a database to locate the cheapest flight to Los Angeles. In each case, these readers are seeking specific information relevant to a particular goal. In contrast to most reading comprehension research in which the goal is to understand or recall the contents of a passage (Calfee & Drum, 1986), the goal is to avoid examining the entire contents of the material. Instead, these readers would use features such as an index, table of contents, or headings to eliminate unnecessary information while focusing on the relevant portions. In other words, these readers are engaging in a type of strategic reading: reading to locate specific information.Students at both the elementary school (Armbruster & Armstrong, 1993;Armbruster & Gudbrandsen, 1986) and secondary school (Smith & Feathers, 1983) levels are expected to engage in tasks such as locating answers to questions, locating evidence supporting their conclusions, and locating specific information for reports. In the workplace, research indicates that reading to locate information is more common than reading for any other purpose (Guthrie, Seifert,

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“…Most research on text search has focused on search of a text that has not been read. Furthermore, although researchers generally require participants to perform multiple searches through the same text, practice effects have typically been ignored (McGoldrick, Martin, Bergering, & Symons, 1992;Symons & Pressley, 1993). Yet familiarity with a text is likely to greatly influence a person's search of the text.…”

Section: Effects Of Familiaritymentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of headings and familiarity with a text on strategies for searching a text

Klusewitz

Lorch

2000

Mem Cogn

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College students were videotaped while they searched chapter-length texts for answers to specific questions. The texts either did not contain headings or contained one of three types of headings that varied in the information that they provided about text organization and content. Familiarity with the text was varied by manipulating (1) the number of prior searches of the text and (2) whether or not the text was read before searching. Measures were taken of the time spent examining each page and of the sequence of examination of pages. Cluster analyses of the search measures revealed that familiarity with the text influenced a searcher's strategy for selecting which pages to examine. Once a page was selected for examination, both headings and familiarity influenced how the page was inspected.

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Locating Discrete Information in Text: Effects of Computer Presentation and Menu Formatting

Cited by 8 publications

References 16 publications

Fifth Graders' Search for Information in a Textbook

Fifth Graders' Search for Information in a Textbook

Planning prompts and indexed terms in textbook search tasks.

Effects of headings and familiarity with a text on strategies for searching a text

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