Comprehending and Learning From Internet Sources: Processing Patterns of Better and Poorer Learners

By Susan R. Goldman, Jason L. G. Braasch, Jennifer Wiley, A. Graesser, Kamila Brodowinska. Reading Research Quarterly, 2012

325 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Readers increasingly attempt to understand and learn from information sources they find on the Internet. Doing so highlights the crucial role that evaluative processes play in selecting and making sense of the information. In a prior study, Wiley et al. (2009, Experiment 1) asked undergraduates to perform a web‐based inquiry task about volcanoes using multiple Internet sources. A major finding established a clear link between learning outcomes, source evaluations, and reading behaviors. The present study used think‐aloud protocol methodology to better understand the processing that learners engaged in during this task: 10 better learners were contrasted with 11 poorer learners. Results indicate that better learners engaged in more sense‐making, self‐explanation, and comprehension‐monitoring processes on reliable sites as compared with unreliable sites, and did so by a larger margin than did poorer learners. Better learners also engaged in more goal‐directed navigation than poorer learners. Case studies of two better and two poorer learners further illustrate how evaluation processes contributed to navigation decisions. Findings suggest that multiple‐source comprehension is a dynamic process that involves interplay among sense‐making, monitoring, and evaluation processes, all of which promote strategic reading.

Subfields: Developmental and Educational Psychology, Information Systems, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b5c290b02fca16835b17ea12a85dceff16ef2420

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Citations in the corpus

Toward an Integrated Framework of Multiple Text Use (2019, methodology): “Second, deep-level patterns of navigation have been associated with multiple text integration and task performance (Goldman et al., 2012; List & Alexander, 2017c; List et al., 2016a; Wiley et al., 2009).”
Handbook of Research on Learning and Instruction (2011, unknown): “We describe the general tenets of each theory, and review empirical studies that support each framework.”
The New Literacies of Online Research and Comprehension: Rethinking the Reading Achievement Gap (2015, background): “The ability to comprehend what is read during online research and learning is important to knowledge-based societies (Goldman et al., 2012 ; PIAAC Expert Group on Problem Solving in Technology-Rich Environments, 2009 ).”
Can Students Evaluate Online Sources? Learning From Assessments of Civic Online Reasoning (2018, unknown): “” (Goldman, Braasch, Wiley, Graesser, & Brodowinska, 2012).”
The Multidimensional Knowledge in Text Comprehension framework (2021, background): “…bridges compared with distal and elaborative inferences (Ozuru et al., 2007; Yukhymenko-Lescroart et al., 2020; cf. McNamara et al., 1996), and more skilled or more knowledgeable readers generate more elaborative inferences (e.g., Carlson et al., 2014; Goldman et al., 2012; Ozuru et al., 2009).”
The Discrepancy-Induced Source Comprehension (D-ISC) Model: Basic Assumptions and Preliminary Evidence (2017, background): “A greater understanding of the mental processes that underlie sourcing could inform our understandings of the reasons that readers appear to be ill-equipped to successfully comprehend information within 21st-century literacy contexts (Alexander & The Disciplined Reading and Learning Research Laborat”
Spontaneous Sourcing Among Students Reading Multiple Documents (2013, result): “Still, our results confirm Goldman et al. (2012) in demonstrating that undergraduates to some extent are capable of using source information in online evaluation of the content of multiple documents.”
Cognitive Affective Engagement Model of Multiple Source Use (2017, background): “Elsewhere, small subsamples of students have been found to engage in the kinds of strategic and evaluative text use that seems to be consistent with the adoption of this default stance (Goldman et al., 2012; Kiili et al., 2008; List et al., 2016a, 2016b; MacGregor, 1999; Wineburg, 1991).”
The Public's Bounded Understanding of Science (2014, background): “Alternatively, they may attribute the occurrence of a conflict to the sources who present the information, for instance, their (lack of) expertise or vested interests (source explanation; Goldman et al., 2012).”