The Pennsylvania State University. The Graduate School. College of Education COMPREHENSION OF SCIENTIFIC TEXTS DURING READING:

Transcription

1 The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School College of Education COMPREHENSION OF SCIENTIFIC TEXTS DURING READING: THE EFFECTS OF PRIOR KNOWLEDGE AND TEXT STRUCTURE A Thesis in Educational Psychology by Yu-Chu Lin 2011 Yu-Chu Lin Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science December 2011

2 ii The thesis of Yu-Chu Lin was reviewed and approved* by the following: Bonnie J. F. Meyer Professor of Educational Psychology Thesis Adviser Jonna M. Kulikowich Professor of Education Hoi K. Suen Distinguished Professor of Educational Psychology Professor-in-Charge of Graduate Program in Educational Psychology *Signatures are on file in the Graduate School.

3 iii ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of prior knowledge and text structure on reading comprehension of scientific texts as a replication and an extension of the second experiment in the study by Kendeou and van den Broek (2007). The differences in how undergraduate students with and without misconceptions about Newtonian concepts comprehended texts with comparison, refutation, or non-refutation text structures were examined and measured by reading times of targeted sentences during reading and recall and knowledge test after reading. The results indicated that reading times of the law statement for one of the topics, Newton s first law of motion, were affected by prior knowledge. Students with misconceptions read the first law statement slower than students without misconceptions. Reading time results were mixed compared to past research, and possible explanations were discussed. Reading efficiency and performance on the knowledge test were a function of readers prior knowledge. Students without misconceptions performed better than those with misconceptions. Students with misconceptions, however, improved more on the knowledge test for questions about the specific law that they read about than students without misconceptions who read the same information.

4 iv TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Tables..v List of Figures vi Chapter 1. INTRODUCTION Chapter 2. LITERATURE REVIEW...4 Prior Knowledge 4 Text Structure.9 Interaction between Prior Knowledge and Text Structure...16 Rationale for Current Study...23 Chapter 3. METHOD.44 Participants...44 Design..44 Materials..45 Procedure.48 Scoring.50 Chapter 4. RESULTS Chapter 5. DISCUSSION..65 References..72 Appendix A: Texts of Newton s First and Third Laws with Three Versions Appendix B: Content Structures for Texts of Newton s First and Third Laws with Three Versions.. 82 Appendix C: Top-Level Structures for Texts of Newton s First and Third Laws with Three Versions..96 Appendix D: Means and Standard Deviations for On-line Reading Times of Laws and Examples Sentences by Structure and Group. 102 Appendix E: Means and Standard Deviations for Reading Efficiency of Recalls by Prior Knowledge and Text Structure 103 Appendix F: Means and Standard Deviations for Off-line Knowledge Pre- and Post-tests by Prior Knowledge, Text Structure, and Topic..104

5 v LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Average Level in Content Structures of Correct Explanation Sentences for Physics Examples in Each Topic and Text Structure 29 Table 2. Introductory Passages before the Law Statement for Each Law and Each Text Structure..35 Table 3. Readability of Each Newton s Law of Motion Text by Topics and Text Structures Table 4. Number of Participants by Text Structure and Group.51 Table 5. Means and Standard Deviations for Individual Difference Measures for Misconception and Non-misconception Groups...53 Table 6. Adjusted Means and Standard Errors for On-line Reading Times of Laws and Examples Sentences by Prior Knowledge and Text Structure 54 Table 7. Adjusted Means and Standard Errors for Reading Efficiency of Recalls by Prior Knowledge and Text Structure Table 8. Adjusted Means and Standard Errors for Off-line Knowledge Pre- and Post-tests by Prior Knowledge, Text Structure, and Topic...61

6 vi LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Reading Times of Law Sentences in Kendeou and van den Broek s study (2007). 22 Figure 2. Reading Times of Explanation Sentences in Kendeou and van den Broek s study (2007).22 Figure 3. Hypothesized Reading Times of Law Statements..39 Figure 4. Hypothesized Reading Times of Explanation Sentences Figure 5. Reading Times of Newton s First Law Statement by Prior Knowledge and Text Structure..55 Figure 6. Reading Times of Newton s Third Law Statement by Prior Knowledge and Text Structure..56 Figure 7. Reading Times of Newton s First Law Correct Explanations of Examples by Prior Knowledge and Text Structure...57 Figure 8. Reading Times of Newton s Third Law Correct Explanations of Examples by Prior Knowledge and Text Structure...57 Figure 9. Scores of First Law Knowledge Test for Participants Reading First Law Text by Prior Knowledge and Time of Test...63 Figure 10. Scores of Third Law Knowledge Test for Participants Reading Third Law Text by Prior Knowledge and Time of Test

7 1 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION Comprehension of expository texts is an important issue. Many factors affect readers comprehension processes during reading expository texts. This study focuses on two critical factors, prior knowledge and text structure. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of these two factors on comprehension of expository texts during reading. Particularly, the goal is to understand the effect of three different text structures (comparison, refutation, and non-refutation texts) on the processes of reading comprehension of scientific texts for students with misconceptions and without misconceptions. This study serves as a replication and an extension of the second experiment in the study done by Kendeou and van den Broek (2007). There are different aspects of prior knowledge. This study focuses on one of the aspects, which is the quality of readers prior knowledge. It refers to the accuracy of the knowledge (Kendeou, Rapp, & van den Broek, 2004). Incorrect ideas or knowledge are called misconceptions. Misconceptions can be found in science classrooms, and there is a substantial amount of evidence that misconceptions cause interference in students learning of scientific conceptions (e.g. Alvermann, Smith, & Readence, 1985; Diakidoy & Kendeou, 2001). Text structure is another factor that affects comprehension during reading expository texts. Authors organize their ideas in different ways, resulting in different text structures. Text structures play an important role in reading comprehension because text structure can be constructed in a way to facilitate understanding of the texts. This study focuses on two text structures. One is the comparison top-level structure (Meyer, 1975).

8 2 Comparison text contains comparison signaling words as emphasis devices for top-level structure. The other text structure is refutation text. Refutation texts refer to texts that are designed to state scientific misconception first, followed by correct statements that refute the previous misconception. Research showed that it facilitates conceptual change and recall of correct conceptions (e.g. Maria & MacGinitie, 1987; Diakidoy, Kendeou, & Ioannides, 2003). Researchers have also investigated the interaction between prior knowledge and text structure on reading comprehension of expository texts by measuring students recalls after reading. Another method to look at the effect is to capture students cognitive processes during reading by measuring their sentence reading times. Differences in sentence reading times in different experimental conditions reflect different cognitive processes during reading. In Kendeou and van den Broek s (2007) study, participants with Newtonian misconceptions and without Newtonian misconceptions were asked to read Newton s first law of motion and Newton s third law of motion structured as refutation texts and non-refutation texts. Participants read the texts sentence by sentence, and their reading times of the target sentences, the law statements and explanation sentences, were recorded. The results showed that readers read Newton s law statements faster in refutation texts than in non-refutation texts. An interaction showed that readers with misconceptions spent more time reading the law statements than readers without misconceptions in refutation texts, but not in non-refutation texts. These findings motivate the investigation of current study. Kendeou and van den Broek (2007) found that readers spent less time reading law statements in refutation texts than in non-refutation texts. The authors attributed this finding to greater coherence of

9 3 refutation texts. However, with close examination of the texts used, the law statements were presented before the sentences that characterized refutation texts, such as misconception statements and refutation statements. Thus, the characteristics of refutation texts were not available to readers when they read the law statements. The differences in reading times of the law statements seem to result from other text structural factors. This assumption motivates the investigation in the current study. Another idea is that refutation text structure is not a fixed structure, but a flexible one. It can be incorporated into different organizational patterns based on the authors writing objectives. Therefore, an additional text structure, comparison text structure, is constructed based on Meyer s work (1975). Refutation texts and comparison texts share almost identical textual information, but the organizations of the texts are different. The difference between comparison and refutation texts is that comparison texts explicitly signal the comparison between correct concepts and misconceptions while refutation texts only implicitly compare the correct and incorrect Newtonian concepts. The attempt to verify this assumption motivates the investigation in the current study. The proposed study is designed to investigate whether the reading times of the law statements from refutation and non-refutation texts in the current study replicate the results in Kendeou and van den Broek s study (2007). By extending their study, the current study further investigates the differences in reading times, recalls, and knowledge test between readers with misconceptions and readers without misconceptions when they read scientific texts in three different structures, including comparison, refutation, and non-refutation structures.

10 4 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW Learning from expository texts is an important issue. It involves being able to understand and remember information in a text. Many factors influence this learning process, and these factors can be categorized into four basic variables, including text, task, reader, and strategy variables (Jenkins, 1979; Meyer, 2003; Meyer & Rice, 1983). This study focuses on two critical factors. One is prior knowledge as a reader variable, and the other is text structure as a text variable. This literature review first introduces research focused the effects of prior knowledge. Next, the literature about the effects of text structure on reading comprehension is presented. This is followed by an examination of prior studies about the interaction between the two factors of prior knowledge and text structure. Finally, the purposes of the current study are presented. Prior Knowledge One factor that affects comprehension and memory of reading expository texts is prior knowledge. Prior knowledge generally refers to the domain-related knowledge that readers possess prior to learning texts in that particular domain. There are two aspects of prior knowledge. One aspect is the quantity of prior knowledge. The other is the quality of prior knowledge. Quantity of prior knowledge refers to the amount of readers knowledge. Bransford and Johnson (1972) found that students were able to comprehend more easily and remember prose passages better when relevant contextual knowledge about the passages was provided in the form of a picture or a title before reading the passages. This

11 5 study pointed to the essential role of prior knowledge for meaningful processing of information during reading. While Bransford and Johnson (1972) manipulated the availability of prior knowledge in their study, a substantial number of studies directly separated readers with high prior knowledge from readers with low prior knowledge and examined differences of reading comprehension between the two groups. These studies have provided evidence of advantages in text comprehension for readers with high prior knowledge over readers with low prior knowledge in various contents, knowledge domains, and ages, such as narrative passages about baseball game for adults and 7th- and 8th-graders (Chiesi, Spilich, & Voss, 1979; Recht & Leslie, 1988), knowledge structure about Star Wars for various grades and college students (Means & Voss, 1985), narrative passages about different cultures for adults (Steffensen, Joag-Dev, & Anderson, 1979), and knowledge structure about physic problems for adults (Chi, Feltovich, & Glaser, 1981). The positive effect of prior knowledge on reading comprehension has not only been demonstrated with quantitative measures, such as more idea units in the passage recalled, but research has also indicated that high prior knowledge facilitates quality of recalls (Chiesi, et al.; Recht & Leslie). Some studies have shown that prior knowledge facilitates recall for both good and poor readers, indicating a powerful effect of prior knowledge on comprehension and memory (McConaughy, 1985; Recht & Leslie). In the previous section, the quantity of prior knowledge has shown facilitative effects on reading comprehension and memory. The other important aspect of prior knowledge is the quality of prior knowledge. Quality of prior knowledge can refer to the structure of readers prior knowledge (Chi, Feltovich, & Glaser, 1981; Dochy &

12 6 Alexander, 1995). Some studies that have investigated the positive effect of prior knowledge also have examined how experts and novices in a certain knowledge domain organize their knowledge differently (Means & Voss, 1985; Chi, et al.). Chi, Feltovich, and Glaser (1981) conducted several experiments to investigate differences in the organization of physics knowledge between experts and novices. Their assumption was that when encountering a particular problem, a problem solver would construct a problem representation, which is a cognitive structure corresponding to that problem. The construction of the problem representation is based on the problem solver s domainrelated knowledge and knowledge organization. When problem solvers are asked to categorize different types of physics problems based on similar solutions, they would use their available knowledge and organization to construct the problem representations. The process of construction would be manifested in what categories they assigned to each of the given problems and the salient dimensions of the problems related to their categorization. Therefore, because experts and novices in physics possess different organizations of physics knowledge, the results indicated that experts and novices in physics categorized physics problems differently. Experts used major physics principles guiding the solution to each of the problems while novices used surface structures of the problems, such as objects or literal physics terms mentioned in the problems. The study also examined the differences in the quality of problem representations between experts and novices in physics by looking at their schemata for a particular type of problems. The schemata focus on the structure and related knowledge for a category of problems. Diagrams with network structure of a particular physics category were depicted based on

13 7 elaborations of experts and novices. The results of comparison showed that experts generated more physics principles and explicit solutions than novices. Quality of the prior knowledge also refers to the accuracy of readers knowledge (Kendeou, Rapp, & van den Broek, 2004). Research aiming at investigating how the accuracy of readers prior knowledge affected reading comprehension has looked into mismatches between readers prior knowledge and information in texts. Two possible mismatches were identified and will be discussed here. One is a mismatch between correct prior knowledge and incompatible text information, and the other is a mismatch between incorrect prior knowledge and correct text information. Many studies have examined the effect of mismatches between readers prior knowledge and incompatible text information on comprehension. This research, which started out to study the positive effect of prior knowledge on reading comprehension, found that prior knowledge also could interfere with comprehension when the information in the passages was not matched to readers prior knowledge (Steffensen, et al., 1979; Reynolds, Taylor, Steffensen, Shirey, & Anderson, 1982; Lipson, 1983). These studies further analyzed students recalls of culturally unfamiliar texts in post-hoc analyses. Students produced less accurate recalls because of pre-existing knowledge about their own cultures that resulted in intrusions and distortions of text information found in the recalls. For example, Lipson (1983) investigated the effect of culturallyspecific prior knowledge on reading comprehension of fourth- to sixth-grade students whose religious affiliation was either Catholic or Jewish. Thirty-two subjects were given three expository passages, including one culturally neutral passage, one passage designed to be culturally specific to the Jewish children, and one passage designed to be culturally

14 8 specific to the Catholic children. After participants finished reading each of the three passages, they recalled the passage and answered 10 probed recall questions, which contained incomplete sentences designed for students to recall information explicitly stated in the text. Reading time for each passage was also recorded. For reading time, the result showed that both Jewish and Catholic groups read the passage that was culturally familiar to them faster. For free recall, the results indicated that students remembered more correct text information and produced more text explicit and text implicit information after reading the culturally familiar passage than after reading the culturally unfamiliar passage. For probed recall, students provided more information for the culturally familiar passage than for the culturally unfamiliar passage. The overall results of the study indicated that an appropriate cultural schema for the text topic enhances reading comprehension. However, in the discussion, the study also further examined students recalls for the passage that was culturally unfamiliar to them. Distortions and intrusions from students own cultural schema were commonly found in their recalls when students read the culturally unfamiliar passage. Students produced more accurate information and made fewer errors in the recalls when reading the unfamiliar passage that was culturally neutral. These findings suggested that the reader s pre-existing knowledge that conflict with text information might have a negative impact on reading comprehension. The other mismatch is the one between reader s incorrect prior knowledge and correct text information. Incorrect ideas or knowledge are called misconceptions. The term, misconception, consistently appears in science learning and is usually related to conceptual change in science research. This is because in the science education context,

15 9 prior to learning scientific conceptions at school, students hold alternative conceptions or misconceptions about some phenomena generated from their experiences and observations. Generally, these misconceptions are defined as conceptions that are not in line with the scientific conceptions (Kendeou & van den Broek, 2005). There is ample evidence that misconceptions cause interference in students acquisition of scientific conceptions (Alvermann et al., 1985; Diakidoy & Kendeou, 2001). In the study by Alvermann et al. (1985), they investigated the effect of activated prior knowledge on readers comprehension of text that was either compatible or incompatible with the activated knowledge. The researchers used two passages for sixth-graders. One was about sunlight, which was incompatible with students existing knowledge, and the other was about rattlesnakes, which was compatible with students existing knowledge. Fifty-two sixth-graders were asked to write what they knew about the two topics in order to activate their background knowledge. And then subjects read the texts and were given 10 multiple-choice questions and written free recall. The final task was a questionnaire inquiring into the difficulty, familiarity, and interest related to the texts. One of the major findings of this study was that students with activation of background knowledge that was incompatible with the text prior to reading it gave incompatible information in postreading free recall. Students who did not activate relevant background knowledge correctly recalled more idea units from the incompatible passage, but not from the compatible one. This study demonstrated that activation of incorrect prior knowledge interferes with learning new information. Text Structure

16 10 The other important factor examined in this review that affects comprehension during reading expository texts is text structure. Text structure is the organization of author s ideas in text. It is an essential characteristic of text because to form a topic in a text, ideas are interrelated, not just unrelated sentences and paragraphs. Text structure gives an overall coherence of an author s ideas and shows the most important message that the author wants to express. Therefore, ideas in texts can be arranged and constructed in a way to facilitate readers understanding of texts. Authors organize their ideas differently, resulting in many different text structures. This study focuses on two text structures. One is the comparison top-level structure from Meyer s prose analysis system (Meyer, 1975), and the other is refutation text. Meyer s prose analysis system has identified and classified different types of organizational patterns in expository texts. These patterns serve as overarching structures corresponding to how writers organize their ideas in expository texts. There are five major top-level structures, including comparison, problem-and-solution, causation, description, and collection (Meyer, 1975; Meyer & Rice, 1982). The five classified rhetorical relationships can be used to organize the text as a whole, but can also be used to relate ideas in parts of the text. For example, comparison can be employed as a toplevel structure to organize ideas in a text, but comparison structure can also be employed to compare and contrast two solutions in subpart of a text that is organized with a problem-and-solution top-level structure. In Meyer s work (1975), different types of signaling are described as emphasis devices for top-level structures. Signaling is the information in text that does not provide new content to the topic but emphasizes and points out the organization of the content. For instance, signaling words for comparison

17 11 texts, such as different, in contrast, unlike, and similar, serve as an emphasis device to signal the rhetorical relationship of comparison among the ideas. There are four types of signaling; they include previously discussed explicit statements of the structure of relations in the content structure as well as preview statements that prematurely reveal information abstracted from the content occurring later in the text, summary statements, and pointer devices (Meyer & Rice). Meyer s prose analysis system also specifies the content structure of texts. Idea units in expository texts are placed into a logical hierarchical structure. Ideas related to the overall organization of the text as macropropositions are located at the top levels of the hierarchy. Based on the logical relationship among the ideas in texts, propositions are positioned at corresponding levels of the hierarchy. This analysis of content structure provides a systematic way to examine what information writers present in texts and a scoring template to match writer s schema to reader s schema. Studies have demonstrated that reading comprehension is affected by the text structures (Meyer & McConkie, 1973; Meyer & Rice, 1982; Meyer & Freedle, 1984; Yeh, Schwartz, & Baule, in press). In the study by Meyer and McConkie (1973), the results showed that idea units in higher levels of the hierarchy were more likely to be recalled than those in lower levels of the hierarchy. Additionally, if an idea unit was recalled, the idea unit right above it in the structure was more likely to be recalled. The study also found that the idea units higher in the structure showed more stable retrieval. These findings suggest that the content structure of a passage is related to certain aspects of the cognitive structure, which learners construct when comprehending and attempting to remember information from text. The study demonstrated the importance of

18 12 hierarchical structure of ideas in a passage for predicting which ideas are best recalled. The phenomenon became known as the levels effects, where ideas higher in the structure are remembered better than lower level information. Meyer and Rice (1982) investigated whether different emphasis patterns in texts resulted in different organizational patterns structuring recalls of good readers and different information recalled by competent adult readers. Five versions of one passage with a comparison top-level structure and subordinate time-order structure were written by varying two text dimensions. One was the emphasis device for top-level structure, where signaling of comparison top-level structure was either explicit or implicit. And the other was the trait of text details, where information related by a time-order structure was either general or specific. The five versions included with-signaling top-level structure with general details, with-signaling top-level structure with specific details, withoutsignaling top-level structure with general details, without-signaling top-level structure with specific details, and without-signaling top-level structure with emphasized specific details. After reading the passage, participants were asked to recall the information from the passage, and half of the participants answered questions about top-level logical relations and details in specific or general form. The other half of participants returned one week later to recall again and answer questions. The results indicated that participants, who read the passage with a signaled top-level structure with general details, organized their recalls with a comparison top-level structure, and ideas higher in hierarchical structure were recalled better than those lower in the hierarchy (the levels effect). For those who read the passage without signaled top-level structure with general details, their recalls revealed the use comparison top-level structure to organize the

19 13 recalls and a levels effect but with fewer logical relations remembered (i.e., causation). The evidence of using comparison structure in their recall even after reading the passage without explicitly signaling the structure was attributed to the proficient reading skills of the participants. Participants who read the passage without signaling top-level structure with specific details tended to organize their recalls with a time-order structure (sequence) because the comparison top-level structure was not explicitly signaled. For those who read the passage with a signaled comparison top-level structure with specific details, participants used a comparison structure to organize their recalls, but also included a time-order structure. As for those who read the passage without signaling of the top-level comparison structure and with emphasized specific details, participants did not consistently follow one structure for recalls. These findings supported the idea that differential emphases of texts resulted in different structures and information remembered by good readers. One study investigated how the text structure strategy affected students cognitive processes during reading (Yeh, Schwartz, & Baule, in press). Researchers examined eye movement patterns of second language English readers before and after training for Text Structure Strategy (TSS) (Meyer, Young, & Bartlett, 1989). The results showed that the eye movement patterns were different before and after the training for the text structure strategy. Before training, readers allocated a greater percentage of gaze duration on the signaling words and problem sentences during the initial pass through the text compared to the second pass. After training, readers allocated the percentage of gaze duration evenly across first and second passes through the text.

20 14 The other text structure that is the focus of the current study is refutation text. Refutation text is a type of text structure that is often used in scientific texts studied by researchers. Refutation texts come from a research area where instructional interventions to change students scientific misconceptions have been extensively studied. Among those instructional interventions, one type of intervention is the use of refutation text. Refutation text is designed in a way where scientific misconceptions are stated first in the text, followed by sentences that directly refute previously stated misconceptions by providing scientific explanations and evidence (Alvermann & Hague, 1989; Guzzetti, Snyder, Glass, & Gamas, 1993). Research has shown that it facilitates conceptual change and recall of correct conceptions (Maria & MacGinitie, 1987; Alvermann & Hynd, 1989; Diakidoy et al., 2003). In a meta-analysis study (Guzzetti et al., 1993), researchers reviewed instructional interventions for conceptual change in science, and one of the findings was that interventions designed to elicit students cognitive conflicts between scientific conceptions and previously held misconceptions facilitated conceptual change. Refutation text was included among these interventions. One study investigated the effect of prior knowledge that is incongruent with the text and the effect of three different text structures on fifth- and sixth-graders reading comprehension (Maria & MacGinitie, 1987). Researchers divided subjects into two groups, good comprehenders and poor comprehenders, and created three different text structures. Text 1 and 2 were both refutation texts. Text 1 presented misconceptions first and then provided contradictory new information to refute the misconceptions while Text 2 reversed this order. Text 3 presents only new information without misconceptions. Subjects were given 24 texts in random order (6 texts as Text 1 with misconceptions, 6

21 15 texts as Text 1 without misconceptions, 6 as Text 2, and 6 as Text 3). After reading each text, subjects recalled orally and were asked to answer Yes-No questions about prior knowledge related to those texts. The results showed that condition of misconception (texts with misconceptions and texts without misconceptions) did not affect subjects recall of new information. And text structures that explicitly stated misconceptions and contradictory new information facilitated more effective performance on recall and answers to questions than did text structure with only new information. Recall from refutation texts contained more correct information. Recalls from good comprehenders showed a preference for using refutation text structure with misconceptions first, followed by refutation. Another study investigated the extent to which the use of refutation text as adjuncts to the instruction would help sixth-grade students to overcome their misconceptions when they learn about energy (Diakidoy et al., 2003). Researchers compared three instruction groups, including refutation text as adjuncts to instruction, expository text as adjuncts to instruction, and standard instruction only. The test about energy was administered one day after the instruction. The test consisted of 6 shortanswer questions and 10 forced-choice items. The delayed test was administered one month after the intervention. The results showed that students in refutation text plus instruction group outperformed those in expository text plus instruction groups and instruction alone group. Interestingly, without the supportive activities after reading refutation text, such as teacher-guided discussion suggested by the Maria and MacGinitie (1987) study, students who read the refutation text still performed significantly better in

22 16 delayed testing one month after the intervention than students who did not read refutation text. Interaction between Prior Knowledge and Text Structure Researchers have not only investigated how prior knowledge and text structure independently impact reading comprehension, but also how they work together during reading comprehension. The current study centers on the interaction between these two factors, particularly the interaction between misconceptions and refutation text on reading comprehension. Many studies have examined this interaction by analyzing data collected after participants finish reading texts. Tasks to check participants comprehension, such as recalls, knowledge tests, or application questions, have been employed after reading. The major findings of this line of research were discussed in the previous section because refutation texts were designed specifically to interact with students misconceptions. Another method to investigate the interaction between refutation text and misconceptions is to observe readers cognitive processes during reading texts instead of after reading. The term on-line is used to refer to cognitive processes during reading. Reading-time and think-aloud protocols are two major on-line methodologies for studying readers comprehension processes. Reading-time methodology was originally designed to look into comprehension processes at word level. For example, Just and Carpenter (1980) examined where a reader paused by using consecutive eye fixations on the same word to find out the gaze duration. By indicating how the gaze durations of each word vary in a text, it was possible for researchers to point out where the integrations of text information happened during reading. In Just and Carpenter s (1980) article, they found that (a) word reading time at the end of sentences (sentence wrap-up time)

23 17 increased due to the integration of previous information before the end of sentences, and (b) particular word reading time increased because of initial appearance of the word in the text or unfamiliarity with the word. Researchers use computers to measure word-reading time by presenting text on a computer screen one word at a time. By clicking the computer s mouse, a previous word disappears, and next word shows on the screen. Dashes are used to represent the words that are not present. Reading time for each word is recorded. The current study employed this general reading-time method, but recorded reading time at the sentence level instead of the word level. Thus, participants were presented a passage with dashes replacing letters of sentences in their corresponding position of the passage on the computer screen. Participants read one sentence at a time and moved to the next sentence by clicking space key on the keyboard. The previous sentence changed from letters back to dashes. Participants knew they were reading texts rather than independent sentences, but they only saw one sentence at a time in the position it would appear if the whole text were visible on the screen. Reading time for each sentence was recorded. Some research has used reading-time as on-line methodology to study the effects of accuracy of prior knowledge, text structure, and the interaction of these two variables on comprehension processes (Kendeou & van den Broek, 2005; Brookes, Mestre, & Stine-Morrow, 2007; Kendeou & van den Broek, 2007). Kendeou and van den Broek (2005) investigated differences in cognitive processes during reading scientific texts between students with misconceptions and students without misconceptions. Both groups of participants read a scientific text that contained three target sentences that stated the correct scientific concepts. Total reading time for the entire text and reading time for the

24 18 specific sentences that stated the correct scientific concepts were compared between groups with and without misconceptions. The results showed that there were no differences of reading time between the misconception group and the no misconception group. However, students recalls after reading showed that the misconception group recalled less textual information and generated more invalid inferences and fewer valid inferences than the no misconception group. This study indicated that readers misconceptions did not affect comprehension during reading scientific texts as measured by on-line reading times, but readers misconceptions did affect comprehension of the texts as measured by recall. Brookes and his colleagues (2007) further examined scientific text processing during reading by inspecting not only the misconception effect but also refutation text effect. Two groups with and without misconceptions read one segment at a time of short passages that were constructed as refutation and non-refutation texts. The results were different from those reported in the Kendeou and van den Broek s (2005) study, where reading time for correct scientific statements was the same for groups with and without misconceptions. Instead, Brookes et al. found that students with misconceptions read the correct scientific segments more slowly than students without such misconceptions. Brookes et al. explained that the readers employed their prior knowledge and constructed a situation model while reading. For readers with misconceptions, the textual information contradicted their situation model. Thus, it took more time to read correct scientific statements for readers with misconceptions than readers without misconceptions. The study also showed that for participants in the misconception group, there were no effects of refutation text structure on reading time and quiz performance.

25 19 Kendeou and van den Broek (2007) conducted a study that investigated the effects of misconceptions and refutation text structure on cognitive processes during comprehension of scientific texts. The first experiment used think-aloud protocols to examine on-line cognitive processes. The second experiment examined the interaction between misconceptions and refutation text structure during reading by using a reading time methodology. Replication and extension of the second study were the primary goals for the current study. In the first experiment, eighty-six undergraduate participants were tested for misconceptions and divided into a misconception group and a non-misconception group. Four texts about two topics were used; the two topics were Newton s first law of motion and Newton s third law of motion. Two versions for each topic were constructed: the refutation text version and the non-refutation text version. Participants were tested independently within one session for about 1 hour and 40 minutes. They were first tested for their misconceptions about Newtonian concepts, and then they practiced how to think aloud after reading each sentence in a practice text. After the practice, they were instructed to read in this manner and recall one text on each topic. The refutation text version and non-refutation text version were randomly assigned to the two topics participants read. Finally, participants completed a reading span test to access cognitive resources and a need for cognition scale to access motivation to engage in cognitively complex tasks. Think-aloud protocols consisted of eight categories, including comprehension monitoring, associations, intra-sentential connections, inter-sentential connections, correct inferences, incorrect inferences, conceptual change strategies, and other. The on-line think-aloud results showed that readers with misconceptions generated

26 20 fewer correct inferences and more incorrect inferences than did readers without misconceptions in both refutation and non-refutation texts. Readers with misconceptions engaged in more conceptual change strategies than did readers without misconceptions during reading refutation text, but not during reading non-refutation text. The off-line recall results showed that readers with misconceptions recalled less textual information than did readers without misconceptions. Regarding the connection between on-line processes and off-line recall, the results showed that for readers with misconceptions, the more correct inferences they produced, the more they recalled. In regard to the connection between findings using think-aloud methodology and reading time methodology, the data showed that as the length of the sentence increased, readers generated more think-aloud responses that showed activation of prior knowledge related or unrelated to the texts. The more such think-aloud responses readers produced, the longer the reading time. Due to the importance of Kendeou and van den Broek s (2007) second study for the current investigation, a detailed presentation of relevant aspects of the study will be presented here. Sixty-nine undergraduates participated in the second study, and were divided into two groups in the same way as the first experiment. The materials used and procedures were also similar to the first experiment described above, except that participants read the texts on the computer silently one sentence at a time at their own pace. Sentence reading times were recorded. Participants were tested independently within one session for about 1 hour and 10 minutes. The data collected for sentence reading times focused on certain target sentences in the texts. These target sentences were explicit statements of Newton s laws of motion and the explanation sentences, which

27 21 provided evidence for the refutations in the refutation text version, and supporting examples in the non-refutation text version. The on-line reading-time results indicated a main effect of text structure for Newton s laws of motion statements and also a main effect of text structure for the explanation sentences. This indicated that the participants read both Newton s law sentences and explanation sentences faster in the refutation texts than in the non-refutation texts (Figure 1 & 2). A possible explanation proposed by the authors was that refutation texts resulted in a more coherent representation. An interaction between text structure and prior knowledge was found in the analysis of reading times for Newton s law statements. Readers with misconceptions about the laws read the law sentences more slowly than readers without such misconceptions in the refutation texts, but not in the non-refutation texts (Figure 1). This finding suggested that when reading refutation texts, readers with misconception detected inconsistencies between their incorrect prior knowledge and the textual information presented. Given such findings, it was also expected that readers with misconceptions would have spent more time reading explanation sentences in refutation texts than in non-refutation texts because the explanation sentences in the refutation texts would help them reconcile the incompatible information. However, there was no difference observed in reading times of explanation sentences between the two types of texts (Figure 2). The authors suggested that the lack of such difference might result from different contents of the explanation sentences across texts. The off-line recall results showed that readers with misconceptions recalled less text information than did readers without misconceptions.

28 22 Law Sentences Reading Time (ms) Misconception Group Non-misconception Group 0 Refutation Non-refutation Text Structure Figure 1. Reading Times of Law Sentences in Kendeou and van den Broek s study (2007) Explanation Sentences Reading Time (ms) Misconception Group Non-misconception Group 0 Refutation Text Structure Non-refutation Figure 2. Reading Times of Explanation Sentences in Kendeou and van den Broek s study (2007) The important feature of refutation texts is that correct and incorrect ideas are organized into refutation texts to promote co-activation. In van den Broek and Kendeou s

29 23 study (2008), they employed a comprehension model simulation using the Landscape Model (van den Broek, Rapp, & Kendeou, 2005) to show that correct and incorrect ideas were both activated in refutation texts by readers while such co-activation was not observed in non-refutation texts. This feature of refutation texts affected readers comprehension processes and promoted changing misconceptions held by readers prior to reading and facilitating learning of the correct textual information. In the Landscape Model there is a component that considers the level of coherence or understanding set by a particular student. In the Kendeou and van den Broek (2007) and the current study, reading span and need for cognition measures provided information about the similarities among experimental groups in their capabilities and motivation to search coherence when reading. Due to group differences Kendeou and van den Broek covaried need for cognition in their analyses. Rationale for Current Study The current study is designed to explore three important findings and their explanations in Kendeou and van den Broek s study (2007). In the following sections, the first two findings are stated together, and the rationale for further investigation in the current study is provided. Next, the third finding is stated, followed by the reason for an additional examination. First, Kendeou and van den Broek (2007) found that undergraduate students read Newton s law statements and related explanations faster from refutation texts than nonrefutation texts (Figure 1 & 2). The authors explained this as a result of the greater coherence of refutation texts. Second, the authors also found that undergraduate students with misconceptions spent more time reading Newton s law statements than students

30 24 without misconceptions in refutation texts, but not in non-refutation texts (Figure 1). This suggested that refutation texts enabled readers to detect contradiction between their incorrect prior knowledge and the information in the texts. This was due to a key characteristic of refutation text that the organization of refutation text co-activates both correct and incorrect ideas while this is not the case for non-refutation text as Kendeou and van den Broek (2008) pointed out. As noted in the literature review section, important ordered characteristics of refutation text structure are the initial order of the misconception statement, followed by the refutation statement (correct conception statement), which is then followed by explanation of the correct conception statement. The rationale for need for further investigation of this work focuses on the fact that in the texts used in Kendeou and van den Broek (2007), the explicit law sentences (correct conception statement) were presented along with recording participants reading times before students read the misconception statements. Thus, the key characteristics of the refutation structure were not available to the readers when they read the law statements. Therefore, differences in readers cognitive processes measured by sentence reading time appear to result from other plausible text structural factors, instead of the effect of the refutation text structure. In regard to Kendeou and van den Broek s (2007) third finding, they expected that the refutation texts would have helped readers with misconceptions detect the inconsistencies between their incorrect prior knowledge and the textual information. That is, the explanation sentences in the refutation texts would have facilitated reconciling such inconsistencies. This would result in the observation that readers with misconceptions would spend more time reading explanation sentences in refutation texts

31 25 than in non-refutation texts. However, no such difference was observed (see Figure 2). The authors explained that it was due to different contents of explanation sentences across the texts and cautioned about over interpreting their findings. Reducing the confounding of content and text structure in the text materials would help to clarify this issue. Revisions to make the contents of explanation sentences similar across the refutation and non-refutation texts would aid the investigation of potential facilitative effects of refutation text on co-activating both correct and incorrect ideas and reconciling inconsistencies between incorrect prior knowledge and textual information for readers with misconceptions. Thus, to remediate this weakness, text revision is required to make the explanation sentences similar across different text structures. Based on the rationale stated above, the proposed study seeks to first replicate the reading time results for the law statements demonstrated by Kendeou and van den Broek (2007). Also, the current investigation will extend their study by investigating an alternative explanation for the different reading times for the law statements other than structure of refutation text. Alternate explanations focus on the levels effect and greater salience of information high in a content structure analysis of a text. The law statements may vary in salience in the content structures of the refutation versus non-refutation texts. The current study also attempts to equate the content of the explanation sentences across refutation and non-refutation texts so that the facilitative effect of refutation texts can be further tested and verified without the confounding of different content. In the following sections, the revision of the explanation sentences will be discussed first, followed by the alternative explanation for the difference in reading time for the law statements.