The associations between child and item characteristics, use of vocabulary scaffolds, and reading comprehension in a digital environment: Insights from a big data approach

Understanding variation in children's reading comprehension: A dynamic approach

“…The feedback may also have played a major role because a decrease in global text comprehension was only observed for participants who required feedback (i.e., the lower-skilled group). This is in contrast to the findings of Diprossimo et al (2023) that children with lower literacy skills benefitted more from vocabulary hints in their text comprehension than children with higher literacy skills. First of all, as participants who required feedback in this study were the lower-skilled children, they may have experienced an additional burden in the current study by answering the questions again after feedback and spending more time on the task.…”

“…Our design may have increased the extraneous cognitive load in the experimental groups in several respects which is supported by the observed differences between the experimental groups and subgroups of readers. Also other related studies explained negative or null effects with an increased cognitive load (Clinton‐Lisell et al, 2023; Diprossimo et al, 2023; Furenes et al, 2021; Ter Beek et al, 2019).…”

“…Aligned with this, Ter Beek et al (2019) found in their study on the effect of scaffolds on digital text reading comprehension with seventh graders a decrease in self‐efficacy for the below‐average readers. it has been shown that the more feedback was required in a digital learning environment, the more the attention to feedback decreased (Timmers & Veldkamp, 2011), while digital hint use in another study was not linked to motivation or performance levels (Diprossimo et al, 2023; Ter Beek et al, 2019). Nevertheless, a higher resistance was observed toward effects deteriorating text comprehension from pretest to posttest for seventh graders who made use of optionally accessible hints than for children who did not consult hints (Ter Beek et al, 2019).…”

“…Two meta‐analyses for studies with participants ranging from school‐aged children to university students supported that enhancing digital text reading with interactive features also including vocabulary glossaries and dictionaries had a positive effect on comprehension of a text compared to reading the same text without interactive features digitally or on paper (Clinton‐Lisell et al, 2023; Schwabe et al, 2022). Also Diprossimo et al (2023) showed that better reading comprehension in a digital text was associated with the use of optional vocabulary hints in form of definitions and pictures in 5‐ to 8‐year‐olds.…”

“…Den Ouden et al (2019) did not examine the need to receive feedback and benefit from feedback within a text but used percentages correct across several texts, which may have influenced the results. They did not examine how the learning potential differed among subgroups of readers, but it has been shown that such effects may depend on child characteristics (Diprossimo et al, 2023).…”