Reading is typically guided by a task or goal (e.g., studying for a test, writing a paper). A reader's task awareness arises from their mental representation of the task and plays an important role in guiding reading processes, ultimately influencing comprehension outcomes and task success. As such, a better understanding of how task awareness…

Reading primary research literature is an essential skill for scientists. However, the high complexity of research papers may pose a barrier to the development of scientific literacy. In semi-structured interviews, we explore how 33 biologists including undergraduates, postgraduates and researchers approach reading an unfamiliar scientific paper.…

Close reading has long been heralded as a humanities-specific methodology with significant potential for SoTL. This essay fills a gap in SoTL literature with a full case study demonstrating what, exactly, close reading shows us about our data that social science-based quantitative and qualitative analyses may not. Close reading-based analysis of…

Background: During digital reading on internet-connected devices, students may be exposed to a variety of on-screen distractions. Learning by reading can therefore become a fragmented experience with potentially negative consequences for reading processes and outcomes. Objectives: This study investigated the effects of on-screen distractions, as…

The purpose of this study was to explore how students with high- and low-prior-knowledge employed multiple representations in argumentation evaluation and generation tasks. The argumentation performance and eye-movement behaviors of 96 college students in these tasks were investigated. The number of participants who proposed complex argumentation…

To create a coherent and correct mental representation of a text, readers must validate incoming information; they must monitor information for consistency with the preceding text and their background knowledge. The current study aims to contrast text- and knowledge-based monitoring to investigate their unique influences on processing and whether…

It is well known that information from spoken language is integrated into reading processes, but the nature of these links and how they are acquired is less well understood. Recent evidence has suggested that predictions about the written form of newly learned spoken words are already generated prior to print exposure. We extend this work to…

This study used a pretest-posttest-delayed posttest design at one-week intervals to determine the extent to which written, audio, and audiovisual L2 input contributed to incidental vocabulary learning. Seventy-six university students learning EFL in China were randomly assigned to four groups. Each group was presented with the input from the same…

This paper will discuss the aspects of content schemata in second language reading among diploma level students who were taking a reading course in Universiti Teknologi MARA Perlis. In this qualitative case study, the researcher had selected two short stories that are categorized as content-familiar texts, i.e. "The Hunted Fox" and…

With the growing prevalence of Web 2.0 technologies and use of online resources in their classrooms, language learners have increasing exposure to online texts. In this study we attempted to understand how university level second language (L2) readers construct meaning when reading online. We investigated L2 readers' information-seeking strategies…

The study examined the effects of cultural familiarity with a text on Chinese students' reading comprehension performance and reading time. In the first phase of the study, participants were required to read a culturally familiar text, write down the time they spent reading the passage, and immediately complete a cloze test without referring back…

This study examined how text features (i.e., cohesion) and individual differences (i.e., reading skill and prior knowledge) contribute to biology text comprehension. College students with low and high levels of biology knowledge read two biology texts, one of which was high in cohesion and the other low in cohesion. The two groups were similar in…

College students with either high or low prior domain knowledge (PK) read a text chapter presented in short pages on a computer monitor. Half of the participants read with headings present and half with headings absent. The computer recorded time spent reading and rereading each short page. Learning was assessed through a structured recall task.…

A study investigated the effects of text processing orientations and reader-generated versus text-based comprehension aids on readers' comprehension of expository text. The processing orientations included memory-oriented processing, organization-oriented processing, understanding-oriented processing, and a read and study control. Subjects, 136…

Examined whether activating conditional knowledge about appropriate strategies for studying a text would enhance self-efficacy and comprehension monitoring in college students. Found that subjects in the activation condition outperformed those in the control condition on reading comprehension monitoring and on comprehension performance but not on…