Strategy Use in Learning From Multiple Texts: An Investigation of the Integrative Framework of Learning From Multiple Texts

Alexandra List,Patricia A Alexander

doi:10.3389/feduc.2020.578062

Alexandra List, Patricia A Alexander

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2020.578062

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Abstract

This study examined undergraduates’ strategy use when learning about a complex and controversial topic (i.e., mass incarceration in the United States) based on information presented across multiple texts. Guided by the Integrated Framework of Learning from Multiple Texts, this study directed students to engage in one of three types of strategy use while learning from multiple texts. In particular, students were asked to identify relevant and important information in texts (i.e., intratextual processing), to form relations or connections across texts (i.e., intertextual processing), or to identify easy or difficult to understand information in texts (i.e., metacognitive processing). In addition to receiving task instructions directing them to engage in these modes of processing, students were also provided with a highlighting tool to scaffold their strategy use (e.g., by allowing important and relevant information to be marked in green, in the intratextual processing condition). This highlighting tool also enabled researchers to collect log data of students’ manifest strategy use. Students were found to demonstrate differential patterns of strategy use in accordance with their assigned processing conditions. Moreover, students’ use of strategies directed toward multiple texts was found to predict multiple text task performance.

Highlights

This study examined whether prompting students to engage in different types of processing when learning from multiple texts impacted their strategy use and task performance
Guided by the IF-MT, this study examined whether directing students to engage in intratextual, intertextual, or metacognitive processing in the preparation stage of multiple text learning, resulted in variable strategy use during execution, and in differences in production, or in learners’ task performance
Using an innovative methodological approach, we establish that (a) modes of strategic processing can be instantiated via task instructions, (b) students direct strategic processing toward a variety of referents when learning from multiple texts, and (c) strategy use is associated with integration performance

Summary

Introduction

This study examined whether prompting students to engage in different types of processing when learning from multiple texts impacted their strategy use and task performance. The multiple text task used in this study required learners to understand and write about a complex and controversial topic (i.e., mass incarceration in the United States) based on information presented across multiple texts. This task was designed to represent the types of academic assignments that undergraduate students are frequently asked to complete (Hendley, 2012; Datig, 2016; Weston-Sementelli et al, 2018). Similar tasks have been employed in prior research examining students’ learning from multiple texts (e.g., Wiley et al, 2009; Barzilai and Weinstock, 2015) This body of research has established that students need a variety of sophisticated skills and strategies to learn about complex and controversial topics from multiple texts. Such sophisticated strategies include being able to Strategy Use and Multiple Texts identify relevant content in texts (Potocki et al, 2017; McCrudden, 2018); synthesize and connect information introduced across disparate texts (Kobayashi, 2009; List et al, 2019b); and, make metacognitive judgments regarding comprehension quality and adequacy of task performance (e.g., Stadtler and Bromme, 2008; Wang and List, 2019)

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