Relationships between spontaneous note‐taking, self‐reported strategies and comprehension when reading multiple texts in different task conditions

Abstract

This study investigated note‐taking during multiple‐text reading across two different task conditions in relation to comprehension performance and self‐reports of strategy use. Forty‐four undergraduates read multiple texts about climate change to write an argument or a summary. Analysis of students’ spontaneous note‐taking during reading showed that intertextual elaboration strategies, as indicated by the notes, were related to deeper‐level, integrated comprehension for students reading to construct an argument, whereas no such relationship was observed for students reading to summarise information. Relations between note‐taking and self‐reporting of strategies suggested a heightened awareness of strategy use among students reading to construct an argument, with this, possibly, explaining why their note‐taking strategies accounted for variance in their comprehension performance. Discussion focuses on the unique contributions of the current work to multiple‐text strategy research.

Students working with multiple conflicting documents on a scientific issue: Relations between epistemic cognition while reading and sourcing and argumentation in essays

“…'s () model, then, our findings suggest that trying to comprehend each text in isolation is a less viable approach when reading multiple documents on the same issue. Rather, students who act on their beliefs to note different sources and elaborate across them seem to be better off in such a complex reading‐task context, as also corroborated by several other recent studies showing the importance of integrative processing during multiple‐documents reading (e.g., Goldman, Braasch, Wiley, Graesser, & Brodowinska, ; Hagen, Braasch, & Bråten, ).…”

Effects of text-belief consistency and reading task on the strategic validation of multiple texts

“…Consistent with this proposal, ample empirical evidence has shown that reading tasks influence text-processing strategies (e.g., Hagen et al 2014;Lorch et al 1993;Narvaez et al 1999;van den Broek et al 2001) and subsequent comprehension outcomes (e.g. Bråten and Strømsø 2010;Britt and Sommer 2004;Gil et al 2010;Richter 2003).…”

“…To the best of our knowledge, only one study in the field of multiple text comprehension addressed reading comprehension strategies triggered by argument vs. summary tasks using note-taking as an indicator of strategy use (Hagen et al 2014). Hagen and colleagues found no general differences in the use of reading strategies (paraphrases, intertextual, and intratextual elaborations) between the argument and summary conditions.…”

The relationship of (perceived) epistemic cognition to interaction with resources on the internet

“…This distinction, though, is important, as producing a 'summary' (distilling claims from documents) versus an 'argument' (justifying stances on claims from documents) produces different kinds of behavior -including in mediating the kind of talk aloud or collaborative dialogue students engage in -as well as end product (Bråten & Strømsø, 2009;Cho, Lee, & Jonassen, 2011;Gil, Bråten, Vidal-Abarca, & Strømsø, 2010;Hagen, Braasch, & Bråten, 2012).…”