FACILITATING TEXTUAL INTEGRATION WITH MACRO-STRUCTURE FOCUSING TASKS

Authors: M. BRITT; JODIE SOMMER

Source: Reading Psychology, Volume 25, Number 4, Oct-Dec 2004 , pp. 313-339(27)

Publisher: Routledge, part of the Taylor & Francis Group

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Abstract:

Students are often asked to integrate information derived from reading multiple documents into a consistent story or model. Based on models of comprehending individual text, we predict that the structure and accessibility of earlier texts should influence one's ability to integrate a new text with previously learned material. In two experiments, we examined the facilitating effect of macro-structure focusing tasks on the integration of information from two texts. Experiment 1 found that having participants summarize a text before reading a subsequent text enhanced integration. Experiment 2 found that both answering macro-level questions and reading instructions to integrate resulted in a more integrated final representation.

Document Type: Research article

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02702710490522658

Affiliations: 1: Northern Illinois University, Dekalb, Illinois, USA

Publication date: 2004-10-01

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