Trial lecture - time and place
Place: Auditorium 2, Helga Engs hus
Time: 10:00 - 10:45
Title: What is strategic reading, how can it be measured, and how can it be taught to university students?
Public Defence
Place: Auditorium 2, Helga Engs hus
Time: 12:00 -
Adjudication committee
- 1st opponent: Professor Mônica Macedo-Rouet, CY Cergy Paris University, France
- 2nd opponent: Professor emeritus Paul van den Broek, Leiden University, the Netherlands
- Chair of committee: Professor emeritus Vibeke Grøver, Department of Education, University of Oslo
Chair of defence
- Professor and Head of Department Anne Line Wittek, Department of Education, University of Oslo
Supervisors
- Principal supervisor: Professor emeritus Ivar Bråten, Department of Education, University of Oslo
- Co-supervisor: Professor emeritus Helge Ivar Strømsø, Department of Education, University of Oslo
Summary
The use of digital devices for reading has become commonplace in both education and private. However, the speed with which these devices have developed over the last decades means we are not completely caught up to what happens with our ability to process and understand informational text when we use these devices to read. This project focuses on digital reading in order to learn more about which device, text, or context related elements may impact reading comprehension, as well as what strategies might be used to support comprehension when reading on a screen. These questions are investigated through two experiments and a correlational study.
Paper I takes on the question of impact of screen size and text movement on integrated text comprehension, strategic backtracking, and intrinsic reading motivation through an experimental study with 145 Norwegian university students as participants. Paging appears to facilitate backtracking behavior and comprehension more than scrolling, however scrolling on a tablet was reported as the most motivating reading experience.
In paper II the relationship between strategic backtracking, engagement, and text comprehension is investigated further by testing a mediation model. Results reveal that backtracking positively predicts integrated text comprehension, even when working memory, reading skills, and reading time are controlled for. This positive effect is mediated by engagement in the writing task that was used to measure integrated text comprehension.
Paper III turns to the impact of digital noise and a summarization strategy on students’ processing and comprehension of multiple documents through experimentally testing the impact of media multitasking and summarizing on how many cross-text elaborations students make while reading multiple documents, as well as their integrated understanding of the texts’ content as measured using an essay task. Media multitasking negatively impacts both processing and comprehension, however using a main idea summarization strategy reduces this effect.
As a whole, this dissertation gives insight into strategy use and comprehension outcomes when using different digital devices, different ways of moving through digital text, and in the presence or absence of social media distractions. Findings indicate that the digital context may in part impact comprehension when reading informational text on digital devices, and the way readers interact with the text emotionally and behaviorally. Educators and students might benefit from considering their choice of text format, reading device, and reading strategy in light of their reading environment and intended learning outcomes.