STRATEGIC PROCESSING OF MULTIPLE SOURCES Ivar Bråten and Helge I. Strømsø Institute for Educational Research University of Oslo Norway Paper presented at th annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association, April 2002, New orleans

AIMS To examine how students use multiple sources strategically as they attempt to comprehend expository texts as part of their normal studying.   To examine changes in students' strategic use of multiple sources over time, and whether those changes are related to changes in the reading task and to students' academic achievements.

BACKGROUND ·       Research demonstrates the importance of active and flexible strategic processing during reading, especially, the advantage of using deeper level strategies.   ·       Research emphasizes the importance of linking multiple sources (intertextuality) in reading comprehension. ·       Knowledge about how strategic processing and linking of multiple sources work together during reading is essentially lacking.

BACKGROUND ·       There are qualitative changes in students' strategic processing over time; as well as potential changes in students' linking of multiple sources. However, changes in students' strategic use of multiple sources over time still need to be examined.   ·       Knowledge about how different tasks influence the way in which strategic processing and the linking of multiple sources work together during reading is essentially lacking.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS 1.                How do students strategically process multiple sources as they read expository texts as part of their normal studying?   2.                Are there changes in students' strategic processing of multiple sources over time? 3.                Are changes in students' strategic processing of multiple sources related to changes in the reading task, in particular to changes in the reading task from first-time reading to keep up with lectures to review in preparation for the examination? 4.                Is students' strategic processing of multiple sources during reading associated with their academic achievements?

METHOD Participants Seven first-year law students attending a full-time, one-year course in civil law. There were three women and four men, ranging in age from 20 to 22 years.   Materials Self-selected texts from students' textbooks and supporting literature (e.g., the code of laws, preliminary law works, accounts of legal cases). Procedure Each student was seen individually for three sessions during the second term. In each session, the student read his or her own text and supporting literature while thinking aloud for 20-30 minutes. This was recorded on both audio and video tape.

Data analysis 1.                Segmentation of the think-aloud transcripts into units of analysis representing "a comment or set of comments on the same core sentence or group of sentences as well as the reading behavior associated with those comments" (Coté, Goldman, & Saul, 1998).   2.                Coding of the segments into the strategy categories of memorization, elaboration, organization, and monitoring. 3.                Coding the segments into the linking categories of primary endogenous links, secondary endogenous links, and exogenous links. ·       Primary endogenous links: Referring to text-internal sources, i.e., sources located within the reading text. ·       Secondary endogenous links: Referring to text-external sources explicitly mentioned in the reading text. ·       Exogenous links: Referring to (written or memorial) text-external sources not explicitly mentioned in the reading text.

RESULTS 1.                Across the three reading sessions, students directed most of their memorization, organization, and monitoring towards primary endogenous sources, while most of their elaboration was directed towards secondary endogenous and exogenous sources.   2.                The students focused a smaller proportion of their strategic processing on primary endogenous sources and a larger proportion of their strategic processing on exogenous sources in the course of the semester.

RESULTS 3.              Changes in strategic processing focus over time were associated with changes in the nature of the task. Students moved towards less strategic focus on primary endogenous sources and more focus on exogenous sources as they started to understand the reading task as review for the examination.   4.                The highest performing students seemed to focus their elaboration and organization more on exogenous sources, while still focusing their memorization and organization at least as much on primary endogenous sources as the rest of the students.

CONCLUSIONS ·       Memorization and organization were mainly directed at the formation of a textbase, elaboration was most involved in the construction of a situation model, and monitoring seemed to do a bit of both.   ·       Strategic processing became less directed towards the construction of a textbase and more directed at the formation of a situation model over time, as the students became more engaged in reviewing their study material for the course examination.

CONCLUSIONS ·       The highest performing students seemed to give more emphasis to constructing a situation model of the texts they were reading, without neglecting the important task of constructing a good textbase representation.   ·       Because the construction of a situation model "can support comprehension and problem solving in new situations" (Kintsch, 1998, p. 290), it seems like a good idea to provide students with instruction in how to integrate information strategically across multiple texts.