|
One of the major challenges of a knowledge society is that students as well as
other citizens must learn to understand and integrate information from multiple textual
sources. Still, tasks and reader characteristics that may facilitate or constrain such
intertextual processes are not well understood by researchers. In four studies, we
compare the effects of summary and argument essay tasks when undergraduates read
seven different texts on a particular scientific topic and we examine whether these
effects are moderated by some characteristics of the reader.
In the first study, we explore and compare the dimensionality of personal
epistemology with respect to climate change across the contexts of Norwegian and
Spanish students. Additionally, we examine relationships between topic-specific
epistemic beliefs and the variables of gender, topic knowledge, and topic interest in the
two contexts. Even though considerable cross-cultural generalizability in dimensionality
was demonstrated, this research also draws attention to the cultural embeddedness of
topic-specific epistemic beliefs.
In the second study, we compare the effects of summary and argument tasks
on the students comprehension and integration about climate change and, using the
Spanish results of the first study, we examine whether the effect of tasks might be
influenced by students epistemic beliefs. Contrary to our predictions, we found that an
instruction to write summaries may lead to better understanding and integration than an
instruction to write argument essays. We also found that beliefs about the certainty of
knowledge in some instances can moderate the effect of task on comprehension
performance.
The third and the fourth experiment were designed to clarify previous conflicting
findings regarding the effects of summary and argument tasks on the understanding of
multiple texts. We examine whether the effect of both tasks may be dependent on
some characteristics of the learning situation (i.e. reading amount and reading
environment) or on readers prior knowledge of the topic. Results showed that an
argument task is not always beneficial in comparison to a summary task and indicated
that differences in prior knowledge can influence effect of task on both surface and
deep understanding of multiple documents. Educational implications are discussed.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________
RESUMEN
La investigación sobre integración de información con documentos múltiples se
ha hecho presentando a los estudiantes textos que abordan una misma temática y
planteando tareas que demandan integración de información. Las operaciones
mentales y estrategias que demandan estas tareas resultan muy difíciles de resolver
para los estudiantes incluso para aquellos con buenas estrategias de lectura en textos
simples(Rouet, 2006). Son varios los estudios que muestran que estudiar un tema
concreto con documentos múltiples, en lugar de hacerlo con un solo texto, beneficia el
aprendizaje de los estudiantes. Sin embargo, el simple hecho de estudiar con varios
textos, no garantiza que estudiantes inexpertos en el manejo de documentos múltiples
se beneficien de tal actividad.
Dentro de este contexto, en la presente investigación se analizan qué tareas
son las más adecuadas para promover la comprensión e integración de documentos
múltiples y qué características del lector pueden interactuar con la tarea moderando su
efecto en dichos procesos. Por medio de una serie de estudios, el primero con
enfoque correlacional y los dos siguientes con enfoque experimental, la tesis examina
el efecto de dos de las tareas más comunes para aprender con documentos que
guardan una relación temática, i.e. los resúmenes y los ensayos argumentativos.
Además, analiza el papel de dos variables individuales que a priori parecen tener una
relevancia clara en estas tareas: las creencias epistemológicas y el conocimiento
previo de los estudiantes. Se discuten las implicaciones educativas de los estudios.
|
