Exploring the effect of task instructions on topic beliefs and topic belief justifications: A mixed methods study

The purpose of this mixed methods study was to investigate whether task instructions that asked adolescents to evaluate the merit of both sides of a controversial issue would affect their topic beliefs and topic belief justifications after they read belief-consistent and belief-inconsistent information. In the quantitative phase, we conducted an experiment in which high school students (n = 45) were randomly assigned to one of four conditions and received their respective pre-reading task instructions. Quantitative analyses showed that task instructions affected topic beliefs and belief justifications. However, inspection of topic belief scores within each condition indicated that some individuals’ beliefs became weaker, whereas others’ became stronger. In the qualitative phase, we conducted interviews to explain why this occurred. The interview data revealed two distinct reader profiles: belief-reflection and belief-protection. The data sets were complementary: the quantitative data indicated group differences in topic beliefs and belief justifications, and the qualitative data allowed us to explain differences within and across groups.     

The Effects of Relevance Instructions and Verbal Ability on Text Processing

The authors examined whether relevance instructions compensate for differences in verbal ability on measures of reading time, text recall, and sentence recognition. College students (n = 81) with higher and lower verbal ability were assigned randomly to 1 of 2 relevance-instruction conditions before reading a text. They asked participants in each condition to focus on different categories of information within the same text. Relevant information took longer to read and was recalled and recognized better than nonrelevant information. Readers with higher verbal ability read faster and recalled and recognized more information correctly than did those readers with lower verbal ability. Results support the noncompensatory hypothesis, which states that relevance instructions and verbal ability make independent contributions to resource allocation and learning. Readers with lower verbal ability may need additional support even when given prereading relevance instructions.     

Differences in student reasoning about belief-relevant arguments: a mixed methods study

This mixed methods study investigated high school students’ evaluations of scientific arguments. Myside bias occurs when individuals evaluate belief-consistent information more favorably than belief-inconsistent information. In the quantitative phase, participants (n?=?72 males) rated belief-consistent arguments more favorably than belief-inconsistent arguments; however, they also rated strong arguments more favorably than weak arguments, which indicated they did not evaluate the arguments exclusively on whether they were belief-consistent. In the follow-up qualitative phase, we conducted interviews with purposefully-sampled students who showed either higher or lower levels of myside bias. Results indicated that students in both groups applied normative evaluation criteria to the arguments. However, students who showed little or no myside bias applied the same evaluation criteria to arguments independent of whether they were belief-consistent, whereas students who showed high levels of myside bias applied different evaluation criteria to belief-inconsistent arguments. These findings suggest that procedural and conceptual metacognition may play a role in the extent to which individuals reason independent of their beliefs.     

Task-oriented reading of multiple documents: online comprehension processes and offline products

We explored readers’ judgments of text relevance and strategy use while they read about a controversial scientific issue in multiple conflicting documents using a think-aloud methodology and had them write a short essay after reading. Participants were university-level students. There were three main findings. First, readers discriminated between more- and less-relevant information while they read. Second, the frequency with which they used strategies differed while they read more- and less-relevant information. Specifically, while they read more-relevant information, students were more likely to build connections between that information and information in other texts. Third, their judgments of more-relevant segments as relevant and their evaluation of less-relevant information while they read were related to the quality of students’ essays after they read. We discuss how the findings may contribute to the literature on task-oriented reading of multiple documents.     

The use of adjunct displays to facilitate comprehension of causal relationships in expository text

We examined whether making cause and effect relationships explicit with an adjunct display improves different facets of text comprehension compared to a text only condition. In two experiments, participants read a text and then either studied a causal diagram, studied a list, or reread the text. In both experiments, readers who studied the adjunct displays better recalled the steps in the causal sequences, answered more problem-solving transfer items correctly, and answered more questions about transitive relationships between causes and effects correctly than those who reread the text. These findings supported the causal explication hypothesis, which states that adjunct displays improve comprehension of causal relationships by explicitly representing a text’s causal structure, which helps the reader better comprehend causal relationships.     

How Visual Displays Affect Cognitive Processing

We regularly consult and construct visual displays that are intended to communicate important information. The power of these displays and the instructional messages we attempt to comprehend when using them emerge from the information included in the display and by their spatial arrangement. In this article, we identify common types of visual displays and the kinds of inferences that each type of display is designed to promote. In particular, we outline different types of semantic and pictorial displays. Then, we describe four main ways in which visual displays can affect cognitive processing including selection, organization, integration, and processing efficiency and how semantic and pictorial displays support these types of processing. We conclude with seven recommendations for designing visual displays and possible directions for future research.