Strategic processing of source text in reading-into-writing tasks: A comparison between summary and argumentative tasks

Abstract

Reading-into-writing tasks are frequently used as an assessment tool in the higher education context. Due to the nature of the task, students strategically process the source texts to successfully select the relevant information and integrate it into their writing. This study addresses the questions of a) how students strategically process the source text in reading-into-writing tasks and b) if there are differences between summary and argumentative tasks with different topics (natural and social sciences) regarding students' strategic processing of the source text. For this purpose, four types of reading-into-writing tasks were developed and completed by 14 students from German universities. While completing the tasks, each participant was asked to verbalize their thoughts (think-aloud), and their screen was video recorded. The audio-visual data were transcribed and analysed using a deductive approach. Our results support previous research about discourse synthesis and metacognitive strategies in reading-into-writing tasks and indicate some differences between the types of tasks and topics in the employment of particular strategies. Moreover, our analyses show that higher-level and lower-level reading processes play a role in the source text strategic processing depending on the reader's goals. This study gives further insights into the reading-into-writing construct, considering task type and topic effects.