Alexandra List

Undergraduate Students’ Justifications for Source Selection in a Digital Academic Context

To complete any academic tasks using information from the Internet, undergraduate students first have to select the appropriate sources. However, the types of justifications that undergraduates provide for source selection and how these justifications may be impacted by task characteristics have been underexamined. This study explored undergraduates’ reported justifications for source selection when responding to questions in a digital academic context. Participants were first asked to answer two questions, one discrete and one open-ended, using an online library of eight sources varying in type and reliability. Subsequently, a guided retrospective interview was used to elicit undergraduates’ justifications for source selection. Source selection decisions were coded as epistemic (e.g., concerned with reliability or credibility) or nonepistemic (e.g., concerned with relevance or accessibility). Undergraduate students’ justifications were significantly more likely to be nonepistemic than epistemic. Further, the reasons for selection offered differed when participants responded to the discrete versus open-ended question, to a limited extent. Epistemic justifications for source selection were related to a number of outcome measures, while nonepistemic justifications were not. Findings are discussed in reference to research and practice pertaining to undergraduates’ multiple source use and task design.

Profiling Students’ Multiple Source Use by Question Type

The present study examined undergraduate students’ multiple source use in response to two different types of academic questions, one discrete and one open-ended. Participants (N = 240) responded to two questions using a library of eight digital sources, varying in source type (e.g., newspaper article) and reliability (e.g., authors’ credentials). Log-data captured students’ source use process. Differences were found in the total number and types of sources students accessed when responding to the two questions. Across the questions, cluster analysis identified five consistent patterns of source use; however, the percentage of student in each cluster differed across the two questions.

Analyzing and Integrating Models of Multiple Text Comprehension

We introduce a special issue featuring four theoretical models of multiple text comprehension. We present a central framework for conceptualizing the four models in this special issue. Specifically, we chart the models according to how they consider learner, texts, task, and context factors in explaining multiple text comprehension. In addition, the models are contrasted along three dimensions capturing different orientations toward multiple text comprehension. Models in the special issue are described as more behaviorally or cognitively focused, as conceptualizing multiple text comprehension as an internally driven or an externally triggered process, and as directly responsive to or indirectly influenced by task. The importance and relevance of this special issue for research on multiple text comprehension are discussed.

Text navigation in multiple source use

Abstract Drawing on theories in evolutionary biology, research on hypertext navigation has posited two profiles to capture how students navigate information sources: the satisficing and sampling approaches of text access. While students engaged in sampling work to identify an optimal source to exploit for information, students who adopt a satisficing approach to text use spend time on accessing the first text they visit that meets some threshold of acceptability. This study examines the manifestation of these profiles when students navigate multiple, non-hyperlinked texts, without time limitations. Evidence was found for a satisficing, but not a sampling, approach to multiple text navigation. Four sub-profiles of satisficing approaches were identified. Students in the limited navigation profile devoted little time to text access. Students in the primary profile devoted the bulk of access time to a single text. Those in the distributed profile visited the texts they accessed for fairly uniform periods of time. Students in the discriminating profile visited certain texts for substantial periods of time, while accessing other texts to a more limited extent. These four navigation profiles were found to be differentially associated with other metrics of text access (e.g., whether texts were revisited), ratings of text usefulness, and task performance.

Exploring the relationship between student approaches to learning and reading achievement at the school level

Using the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study, Kindergarten Cohort of 1998 (ECLS-K, 98), a nationally representative sample of kindergarteners in the United States, we investigated the relationship between approaches to learning and spring reading achievement with particular emphasis on classroom and school-level differences. We employed hierarchical linear modelling to investigate classroom- and school-level influences on children’s spring reading achievement and their teacher-rated approaches to learning. Results indicate that classroom-level variables are particularly important predictors of spring reading in kindergarten and also relate to the strength of the relationship between teacher-rated approaches to learning and spring reading achievement. Specifically, in classrooms with a high frequency of reading activities, there is a stronger relationship between teachers’ ratings of approaches to learning and spring reading achievement than in classrooms with a low frequency of reading activities. Also, the relation between teachers’ ratings of approaches to learning and achievement appears to be stronger in schools with high enrolment, as compared to schools with low enrolment. Findings suggest that the frequency of reading activities in the classroom is not only important for students’ reading achievement, but that these activities are also related to the important relationship between approaches to learning and reading achievement.

Elementary and Middle School Students’ Conceptions of Knowledge, Information, and Truth

Although the study of epistemic beliefs has received growing interest in the past decades, this research tends to focus on high school and undergraduate students, and does not address beliefs about information and truth, concepts that have been regarded as critical for learners in 21st-century educational contexts. In this study, the authors examined 87 elementary and middle school students’ beliefs about the definitions of and relations among knowledge, information, and truth through the use of a graphical and justification task, and addressed the consistency of beliefs across contexts and domains. Results indicated that students tended to regard knowledge, information, and truth as interrelated, and the majority of students described their beliefs as consistent across contexts and domains.

Corroborating students’ self-reports of source evaluation

ABSTRACT Students were asked to report their typical practices with regard to source evaluation using the Credibility Assessment Scale (CAS). Students’ reports were validated against behavioural and cognitive indicators of source evaluation. Specifically, while researching a social science prompt, students’ source use behaviours, related to text evaluation, were logged. Following task completion, students were asked to rank the trustworthiness of the information sources they accessed and to justify their rankings. The criteria students cited for rankings of text trustworthiness were considered to be cognitive-based indicators of source evaluation, and mapped onto CAS items. Limited correspondence was found between students’ reported engagement in verification-related behaviours and either the behaviours manifest during task completion or the criteria for source evaluation cited at post-task. At the same time, a correspondence was found among behavioural and cognitive aspects of source evaluation, within the context of a specific task. This study is unique in directly corroborating self-reported, behavioural, and cognitive measures of source evaluation and examining these within the context of a rich and naturalistic multiple text task. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Predicting Four-Year Student Success from Two-Year Student Data

This chapter describes a study that evaluated the academic pathway of transfer students from two community colleges to a 4-year university. The project focused on a series of academic milestones that students must achieve prior to earning a 4-year credential. Those milestones include the first-term GPA, re-enrollment, and program completion. The purpose of this project was to develop an integrated database that contains key data on student demographics, course-taking behaviors, and performance from both the community college and the 4-year institution and to analyze the data using data mining and traditional statistical techniques to predict student success.

Motivation and Self-regulation in Community College Transfer Students at a Four-year Online University

ABSTRACT Motivation and self-regulation were examined in a sample of community college transfer students enrolled in a 4-year, online university. The relation between motivation and self-regulation and students’ performance was examined, as was the association between these learner characteristics (i.e., motivation and self-regulation) and sociodemographic factors (e.g., marital status, employment status). Motivation was found to be significantly correlated with both semester and cumulative grade point average (GPA), while associations between self-regulation and performance were more limited. Further, motivation was found to be a significant predictor of semester GPA in a model controlling for sociodemographic factors and prior achievement. Motivation and self-regulation were also found to differ according to students’ sociodemographic status. For instance, transfer students with children under 18 were found to have significantly higher levels of motivation than nonparents. Those employed full-time had lower levels of self-regulation than did their nonemployed peers. Implications for further research on community college transfer students and online learning are discussed.