Reading skills and children’s navigation strategies in hypertext

Quality of children’s knowledge representations in digital text comprehension: Evidence from pathfinder networks

“…These features can, to some extent, support macro-level structure understanding, support coherence, and prevent the reader from becoming disoriented (Jin, 2013;Madrid, Van Oostendorp, & Melguizo, 2009;Meyer, Ray, & Middlemiss, 2012;Payne & Reader, 2006;Salmerón & García, 2011, 2012. Such features support the building of a rich and coherent knowledge structure (Clariana, 2010;Ritchey, Schuster, & Allen, 2008;Salmerón et al, 2009;Waniek, 2012;Waniek et al, 2003).…”

“…As said, in digital text, the text structure is expressed by means of textual features including hyperlinks and overviews that permit flexibility in reading order (Salmerón & García, 2011, 2012Waniek, 2012). These features can, to some extent, support macro-level structure understanding, support coherence, and prevent the reader from becoming disoriented (Jin, 2013;Madrid, Van Oostendorp, & Melguizo, 2009;Meyer, Ray, & Middlemiss, 2012;Payne & Reader, 2006;Salmerón & García, 2011, 2012.…”

Does Navigation Always Predict Performance? Effects of Navigation on Digital Reading are Moderated by Comprehension Skills

“…First, while it was one crucial property of navigation that was investigated in the study reported here, the selection of relevant (and irrelevant) text materials, this is by no means the only important property of a navigational path. For instance, coherence of the navigational path has been established as another variable that is predictive of comprehension and learning outcomes in reading and comprehending digital text (Amadieu & Tricot, 2008;Naumann et al, 2007;Richter et al, 2005;Salmerón et al, 2005;Salmerón, Kintsch, & Cañas, 2006), as has the use of navigation help devices such as topical overviews (Dias & Sousa, 1997;Salmerón & García, 2011;Su & Klein, 2006). For these properties of navigation, for the time being, we do not know whether, and how, their impact on performance is moderated by students' skills.…”

“…While this mediating role of navigation on the relationship between offline comprehension skills and online performance has been already reported in small scale studies (Naumann, Richter, Christmann, & Groeben, 2008;Salmerón & García, 2011), less is known about the potential moderator effect of offline comprehension skills on the relationship between navigation and performance (e.g., navigation may predict online performance only for students with sufficient offline comprehension skills). The goal of this study is to shed light on this aspect.…”

Location of navigation menus in websites: an experimental study with Arabic users

“…As the navigation menu provides an overview of the content of the site, it is helpful to pay attention to it before reading [13]. According to this argument, in languages that are read from left to right, navigation menus should be placed on the left, whereas in right-to-left languages (such as Arabic or Hebrew) they should be placed on the right-hand side.…”