Constructed Responses as a Window into Strategic Processing: The Role of Prompts in Multiple-Document Reading
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| Title: | Constructed Responses as a Window into Strategic Processing: The Role of Prompts in Multiple-Document Reading |
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| Language: | English |
| Authors: | Katerina Christhilf (ORCID |
| Source: | Grantee Submission. 2025. |
| Peer Reviewed: | Y |
| Page Count: | 27 |
| Publication Date: | 2025 |
| Sponsoring Agency: | Institute of Education Sciences (ED) |
| Contract Number: | R305A180144 |
| Document Type: | Reports - Research |
| Education Level: | Higher Education Postsecondary Education |
| Descriptors: | Reading Processes, Reader Response, Prompting, Reading Strategies, Undergraduate Students, Climate, Protocol Analysis, Metacognition, Information Sources, Evaluation, Reading Comprehension, Reading Skills, Prior Learning, Individual Differences, Reading Tests |
| Assessment and Survey Identifiers: | Gates MacGinitie Reading Tests |
| DOI: | 10.1080/0163853X.2025.2578594 |
| Abstract: | This study investigates how learners' constructed responses, specifically typed thoughts prompted during multiple-document reading, reveal cognitive strategies used to integrate and make sense of complex information. Undergraduate students (n = 73) read four texts on climate change and generated constructed responses to one of three types of prompts: self-explanation, source evaluation, and think-aloud. Readers' constructed responses were coded and analyzed for evidence of key comprehension strategies: paraphrasing, bridging, elaboration, source evaluation, and comprehension monitoring. Results revealed that self-explanation prompts promoted paraphrasing and bridging; source evaluation prompts encouraged bridging, elaboration, and sourcing; and think-aloud prompts supported comprehension monitoring. Although only comprehension monitoring predicted improved performance on multiple-document comprehension measures, the constructed responses nonetheless provided a window into students' strategic processes while reading. Insights gleaned from the constructed responses highlight their unique power to reveal the mental processes that underlie reading comprehension and to inform the design of more effective instructional scaffolds. [This is the online first version of an article published in "Discourse Processes" (ISSN 0163-853X, EISSN 1532-6950).] |
| Abstractor: | As Provided |
| Notes: | https://osf.io/f8en2 |
| IES Funded: | Yes |
| Entry Date: | 2025 |
| Accession Number: | ED677248 |
| Database: | ERIC |
| Abstract: | This study investigates how learners' constructed responses, specifically typed thoughts prompted during multiple-document reading, reveal cognitive strategies used to integrate and make sense of complex information. Undergraduate students (n = 73) read four texts on climate change and generated constructed responses to one of three types of prompts: self-explanation, source evaluation, and think-aloud. Readers' constructed responses were coded and analyzed for evidence of key comprehension strategies: paraphrasing, bridging, elaboration, source evaluation, and comprehension monitoring. Results revealed that self-explanation prompts promoted paraphrasing and bridging; source evaluation prompts encouraged bridging, elaboration, and sourcing; and think-aloud prompts supported comprehension monitoring. Although only comprehension monitoring predicted improved performance on multiple-document comprehension measures, the constructed responses nonetheless provided a window into students' strategic processes while reading. Insights gleaned from the constructed responses highlight their unique power to reveal the mental processes that underlie reading comprehension and to inform the design of more effective instructional scaffolds. [This is the online first version of an article published in "Discourse Processes" (ISSN 0163-853X, EISSN 1532-6950).] |
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| DOI: | 10.1080/0163853X.2025.2578594 |
