Comprehending and Learning From Internet Sources: Processing Patterns of Better and Poorer Learners

TLDR

Readers increasingly seek to understand and learn from Internet information, underscoring the crucial role of evaluative processes in selecting and making sense of sources. Using a think‑aloud protocol, the authors had undergraduates complete a web‑based inquiry task about volcanoes, contrasting 10 better learners with 11 poorer learners and illustrating evaluation‑driven navigation through case studies. The study found that better learners performed more sense‑making, self‑explanation, comprehension monitoring, and goal‑directed navigation on reliable sites, establishing a clear link between source evaluation, reading behavior, and learning outcomes, and indicating that multiple‑source comprehension is a dynamic process driven by these strategies.

Abstract

Abstract Readers increasingly attempt to understand and learn from information sources they find on the Internet. Doing so highlights the crucial role that evaluative processes play in selecting and making sense of the information. In a prior study, Wiley et al. (2009, Experiment 1) asked undergraduates to perform a web‐based inquiry task about volcanoes using multiple Internet sources. A major finding established a clear link between learning outcomes, source evaluations, and reading behaviors. The present study used think‐aloud protocol methodology to better understand the processing that learners engaged in during this task: 10 better learners were contrasted with 11 poorer learners. Results indicate that better learners engaged in more sense‐making, self‐explanation, and comprehension‐monitoring processes on reliable sites as compared with unreliable sites, and did so by a larger margin than did poorer learners. Better learners also engaged in more goal‐directed navigation than poorer learners. Case studies of two better and two poorer learners further illustrate how evaluation processes contributed to navigation decisions. Findings suggest that multiple‐source comprehension is a dynamic process that involves interplay among sense‐making, monitoring, and evaluation processes, all of which promote strategic reading.