This study explores how the construct of interest may influence first-year community college students' willingness to engage with academic text assignments. Research on interest theory as presented by Renninger (2009) suggests that students, even those with low self-efficacy or regulation, are more likely to make gains in engagement and/or…

Prior work has examined the role of interest in students' single text processing and comprehension, but interest has been under-examined within the context of multiple text use. This study examines two forms of interest, individual interest and situational interest, in the context of students' completion of a multiple text task. Time on texts and…

The author of this article describes individual pre-class and group in-class assignments based on current news articles. Guided student pre-class readings of periodical articles can form the basis for engaging in-class group assignments. Many economics instructors seek to develop student skills at applying the concepts under study to analyze…

We introduce the Integrated Framework of Multiple Texts to understand how students use and form connections between multiple texts to accomplish personal or task goals. The Integrated Framework of Multiple Texts conceptualizes students' multiple text use as unfolding over the course of three stages--preparation, execution, and production. In the…

The primary goal of this study was to investigate, document, and understand the reasons that educators who use graphic novels in their classrooms choose to use them, rather than traditional text. Secondary goals were to identify the classes they teach, and to identify commonalities and shared best practices. Interviews were scheduled, to provide…

The purpose of this study was to determine the value that graduate students place on different types of instructional methods used by professors in educational leadership preparation programs, and to determine if master's and doctoral students place different values on different instructional methods. The participants included 87 graduate…

The comparative effectiveness of graphic novels, heavily illustrated novels, and traditional novels as reading teaching tools has been sparsely researched. During the 2011-2012 school year, 24 mixed-ability fifth grade students chose to read six novels: two traditional novels, two highly illustrated novels and two graphic novels. Students…

The current generation of college students is so adapted to the digital world that they have been labeled the multi-tasking generation (Foehr, 2006; Wallis, 2006). College students routinely use digital playback devices in their lives for entertainment and communication to the point that students being "plugged in" is a ubiquitous image.…

One of the many challenges faculty members face when teaching courses is insuring that students read the assigned material by the due date. This study examines student reading behavior in two courses in order to better understand how student reading behavior changes over the course of the semester. The purpose of this study is to identify factors…

This article investigated the English reading habits of Indonesian students of EFL. The data were collected through a questionnaire survey and interview validation. The questionnaires were distributed to 546 EFL college students in East Java. Based on the statistical analysis of the data, it is concluded that although the students have read…

Teachers of standards based, College Prep English classes regularly face resistant and struggling readers who fail to engage, persevere, and comprehend curricular texts. As a result, these readers do not share in class discussions. Therefore, a class discourse was formulated upon Gee's (1996) Social Discourse theory and Leu, Kinzer, Coiro, and…

In her new book, Valerie Kinloch, award-winning author of "Harlem on Our Minds", sheds light on the ways urban youth engage in "meaning-making" experiences as a way to assert critical, creative, and highly sophisticated perspectives on teaching, learning, and survival. Kinloch rejects deficit models that have traditionally…

In this article, the author describes a text preview assignment that she gave to her students. Students completing the text preview assignment use multimodal design, introducing classmates to texts in ways that motivate and inform their reading. She discusses using previews to set the stage for reading and discussion and to deepen personal…

The number of academic eBooks in university libraries is increasing. Reading digital materials such as newspapers is valued in Hong Kong; however, students' perceptions of the value of reading academic eMaterials are not well known. In this study we investigated 12 students' use of academic eBooks on mobile readers in two ways. Six students had…

Describes an investigation to determine whether junior high school students generate important meanings from their social studies textbooks, and to assess the kind of information students derive from text when they have tests in mind. Indicates that adolescents isolate and particularize their reading to meet perceived test demands. (MG)