Effects of context and discrepancy when reading multiple documents.

On a daily basis, most people read about issues of interest from a diversity of sources. Moreover, the information they encounter frequently encompass discrepancies, ranging from minor inconsistencies to straight contradictions. Readers may construct coherent representations from discrepant contents by linking contents to their respective sources and connecting the sources with agree-disagree or other types of connectives. Across research studies, however, college-level readers' attention to sources has been found to vary according to individual, text and task dimensions. The present study tested the assumption that readers' strategies depend both on the discrepancy of the information and on the context in which the task is framed. Moreover, beliefs about science were included as potential moderator of context effects. One hundred and sixty university students were tasked to read about a series of social-scientific issues. The task was framed in either a university context or a personal context scenario. For each topic, the participants read two short texts which provided either consistent or discrepant information, and then they wrote a short overview essay. The university context had a significant impact on indicators related to a documents model representation (e.g., text switches, number of adversative connectors in the essay) and standards for presentation (e.g., time on the essay/task page, formal features of the essay). The data support a context-dependent view of reading comprehension, whereby both reading behavior and outcomes are primarily a function of the standards and goals set by the reader. Supplementary Information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11145-022-10321-2.

Science-utility and science-trust associations and how they relate to knowledge about how science works.

Knowledge about how science works, trust in scientists, and the perceived utility of science currently appear to be eroding in these times in which "alternative facts" or personal experiences and opinions are used as arguments. Yet, in many situations, it would be beneficial for the individual and all of society if scientific findings were considered in decision-making. For this to happen, people have to trust in scientists and perceive science as useful. Still, in university contexts, it might not be desirable to report negative beliefs about science. In addition, science-utility and science-trust associations may differ from explicit beliefs because associations were learned through the co-occurrence of stimuli rather than being based on propositional reasoning. We developed two IATs to measure science-utility and science-trust associations in university students and tested the psychometric properties and predictive potential of these measures. In a study of 261 university students, the IATs were found to have good psychometric properties and small correlations with their corresponding self-report scales. Science-utility and science-trust associations predicted knowledge about how science works over and above self-reported beliefs. The results suggest that indirect measures are useful for assessing beliefs about science and can be used to predict outcome measures.

More Than (Single) Text Comprehension? - On University Students' Understanding of Multiple Documents.

The digital revolution has made a multitude of text documents from highly diverse perspectives on almost any topic easily available. Accordingly, the ability to integrate and evaluate information from different sources, known as multiple document comprehension, has become increasingly important. Because multiple document comprehension requires the integration of content and source information across texts, it is assumed to exceed the demands of single text comprehension due to the inclusion of two additional mental representations: the integrated situation model and the intertext model. To date, there is little empirical evidence on commonalities and differences between single text and multiple document comprehension. Although the relationships between single text and multiple document comprehension can be well distinguished conceptually, there is a lack of empirical studies supporting these assumptions. Therefore, we investigated the dimensional structure of single text and multiple document comprehension with similar test setups. We examined commonalities and differences between the two forms of text comprehension in terms of their relations to final school exam grades, level of university studies and university performance. Using a sample of n = 501 students from two German universities, we jointly modeled single text and multiple document comprehension and applied a series of regression models. Concerning the relationship between single text and multiple document comprehension, confirmatory dimensionality analyses revealed the best fit for a model with two separate factors (latent correlation: 0.84) compared to a two-dimensional model with cross-loadings and fixed covariance between the latent factors and a model with a general factor. Accordingly, the results indicate that single text and multiple document comprehension are separable yet correlated constructs. Furthermore, we found that final school exam grades, level of university studies and prior university performance statistically significant predicted both single text and multiple document comprehension and that expected future university performance was predicted by multiple document comprehension. There were also statistically significant relationships between multiple document comprehension and these variables when single text comprehension was taken into account. The results imply that multiple document comprehension is a construct that is closely related to single text comprehension yet empirically differs from it.

Validating process variables of sourcing in an assessment of multiple document comprehension.

BACKGROUND: With digital technologies, competence assessments can provide process data, such as mouse clicks with corresponding timestamps, as additional information about the skills and strategies of test takers. However, in order to use variables generated from process data sensibly for educational purposes, their interpretation needs to be validated with regard to their intended meaning. AIMS: This study seeks to demonstrate how process data from an assessment of multiple document comprehension can be used to represent sourcing, which summarizes activities for the consideration of the origin and intention of documents. The investigated process variables were created according to theoretical assumptions about sourcing, and systematically tested for differences between persons, units (i.e., documents and items), and properties of the test administration. SAMPLE: The sample included 310 German university students (79.4% female), enrolled in several bachelor's or master's programmes of the social sciences and humanities. METHODS: Regarding the hierarchical data structure, the hypotheses were analysed with generalized linear mixed models (GLMM). RESULTS: The results mostly revealed expected differences between individuals and units. However, unexpected effects of the administered order of units and documents were detected. CONCLUSIONS: The study demonstrates the theory-informed construction of process variables from log-files and an approach for empirical validation of their interpretation. The results suggest that students apply sourcing for different reasons, but also stress the need of further validation studies and refinements in the operationalization of the indicators investigated.