Students' comprehension of science textbooks using a question‐based reading strategy

Abstract

Despite the heavy reliance on textbooks in college courses, research indicates that college students enrolled in first-year science courses are not proficient at comprehending informational text. The present study investigated a reading comprehension questioning strategy with origins in clinical research based in elaboration interrogation theory, which outlines how to encourage readers to recall relevant background knowledge while reading text materials. The theory suggests that the strategy increases the likelihood that readers will integrate what they read with what they know to make new knowledge. The setting for the study more closely resembled classroom conditions compared to similar studies in the past. Unlike previous studies on reading comprehension, students read a challenging passage from the textbook used in a science course in which they were enrolled. In addition, the text was longer than that used in clinical research. The college students (n ¼ 294) in this study were randomly assigned to either a questioning strategy treatment or a rereading placebo-control. While reading, treatment students were presented with statements taken from regular intervals in their textbook (about every 150 words) and asked a simple why question about each of these statements. Significant differences were found favoring elaborative interrogation theory and its question strategy treatment over the placebo-control in terms of science comprehension even after significant estimated predictors of prior knowledge and verbal ability were statistically controlled or accounted for by removing the statistical contributions of these predictors to the main effects. ß

Mapping for depth and variety: using a “Six W’s” scaffold to facilitate concept mapping for different history concepts with different degrees of freedom

“…Research shows that providing questions for the meaning of a text can encourage learners to activate their relevant prior knowledge and to integrate it with the text content. This additional cognitive activity can deepen comprehension of the text and generate responses more elaborative than verbatim recitation of the text would (Seifert 1993;Graesser, Baggett, and Williams 1996;Callender and McDaniel 2007;Smith, Holliday, and Austin 2010). The effects of providing adjunct questions also include improvements in (1) memory of factual knowledge, (2) inferential knowledge and (3) grasp of a text's main ideas (Woloshyn, Pressley, and Schneider 1992;Seifert 1993;Pressley and McCormick 1995).…”

“…In addition, because people learn everyday concepts and academic-oriented unique concepts in different contexts and according to different methods, the differences among concept mappings that correspond to different types of concepts could manifest themselves much as concept-mapping associates with different motivational factors and cognitive strategies. Thus, it is hypothesised that different motivation factors and different cognitive strategies can help predict concept-mapping performances for concepts involving different knowledge prototypes Second, many studies have shown that adjunct questions help students integrate prior knowledge into current reading materials, so as to improve students' comprehension of and recall of the reading materials' content (Bing 1982;Smith, Holliday, and Austin 2010). Because applying the 6W scaffold to concept mapping is expected to help students explore the multidimensionality characterising each concept node, it is hypothesised that students who use the 6W scaffold can retrieve more nodes, create more propositions and do so more productively than is the case with students who do not use the scaffold.…”

An Education Towards the Future

“…• 'The odd question': The brain generates dopamine (thus guaranteeing learning) in front of the unexpected [29]. Examples such as 'Why is it successful, from an evolutionary perspective, privileging a single organ, thus preventing life in case of damage?'…”

Reading Comprehension Strategy Instruction in a First-Year Course: An Instructor's Self-Study

“…There is less exploration of the integration of reading comprehension instruction as part of discipline-specific content courses intended for first-year students (for an exception see Shepherd, Selden, & Selden's, 2009 research exploring reading instruction as part of first-year mathematics). Even when such studies exist, they are often limited to the use of a specific comprehension strategy versus promoting an extensive repertoire.…”