Connectives and Layout as Processing Signals: How Textual Features Affect Students' Processing and Text Representation
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| Title: | Connectives and Layout as Processing Signals: How Textual Features Affect Students' Processing and Text Representation |
|---|---|
| Language: | English |
| Authors: | van Silfhout, Gerdineke, Evers-Vermeul, Jacqueline, Mak, Willem M., Sanders, Ted J. M. |
| Source: | Journal of Educational Psychology. Nov 2014 106(4):1036-1048. |
| Availability: | American Psychological Association. Journals Department, 750 First Street NE, Washington, DC 20002. Tel: 800-374-2721; Tel: 202-336-5510; Fax: 202-336-5502; e-mail: order@apa.org; Web site: http://www.apa.org |
| Peer Reviewed: | Y |
| Page Count: | 13 |
| Publication Date: | 2014 |
| Document Type: | Journal Articles Reports - Research |
| Education Level: | Secondary Education |
| Descriptors: | Reading Comprehension, Layout (Publications), Form Classes (Languages), Reading Processes, Secondary School Students, Eye Movements, Reading Rate, Short Term Memory, Scores, Foreign Countries |
| Geographic Terms: | Netherlands |
| DOI: | 10.1037/a0036293 |
| ISSN: | 0022-0663 |
| Abstract: | When students read their school text, they may make a coherent mental representation of it that contains coherence relations between the text segments. The construction of such a representation is a prerequisite for learning from texts. This article focuses on the influence of connectives ("therefore," "furthermore") and layout (continuous placement of sentences vs. each sentence beginning a new line) on the dynamics of the reading process as well as the quality of students' mental representation. The results shed light on the cognitive reading processes of students in secondary education, which allows us to explain effects of text features on off-line comprehension measures. Our eye-tracking data emphasize the importance of connectives: Connectives speed up students' processing, especially when texts have a continuous layout. In contrast, students' processing slows when they read texts with a discontinuous layout. Our data also show a correlation between reading times and scores on bridging inference tasks: Students who read faster have higher comprehension scores. These findings indicate that explicit texts with a continuous layout place fewer processing demands on students' working memory. |
| Abstractor: | As Provided |
| Number of References: | 70 |
| Entry Date: | 2015 |
| Accession Number: | EJ1049461 |
| Database: | ERIC |
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