People read for many different reasons. These goals affect the cognitive processes and strategies they use during reading. Understanding how reading goals exert their effects requires investigation... Show morePeople read for many different reasons. These goals affect the cognitive processes and strategies they use during reading. Understanding how reading goals exert their effects requires investigation of whether and how they affect specific component processes, such as validation. We investigated the effects of reading goal on text-based and knowledge-based validation processes during reading and on the resulting offline mental representation. We employed a self-paced sentence-by-sentence contradiction paradigm with versions of texts containing target sentences that varied systematically in congruency with prior text and accuracy with background knowledge. Participants were instructed to read for general comprehension or for study. Memory for text information was assessed the next day. We also measured the degree to which each text topic was novel to a reader, as well as his or her working memory capacity. Results show that reading goals affect readers’ general processing as indicated by overall reading times, but provide no evidence that they influence validation processes. Reading goals did affect readers’ memory for target information but this effect depended on congruency between that information and the preceding text: Reading for study generally resulted in better memory for target information than reading for comprehension did, but not for target information that was incongruent with prior text. These results suggest that reading goals may not influence validation processes directly but affect subsequent representation-building processes after the detection of an (in)consistency—particularly in the case of incongruencies with prior text. Show less
Broek, P.W. van den; Helder, A.; Espin, C.A.; Liende, M. van der 2021
Research into students’ peer-feedback beliefs varies both thematically and in approaches and outcomes. This study aimed to develop a questionnaire to measure students’ beliefs about peer-feedback.... Show moreResearch into students’ peer-feedback beliefs varies both thematically and in approaches and outcomes. This study aimed to develop a questionnaire to measure students’ beliefs about peer-feedback. Based on the themes in the literature four scales were conceptualised. In separate exploratory (N = 219) and confirmatory (N = 121) studies, the structure of the questionnaire was explored and tested. These analyses confirmed the a priori conceptualised four scales: (1) students’ valuation of peer-feedback as an instructional method, (2) students’ confidence in the quality and helpfulness of the feedback they provide to a peer, (3) students’ confidence in the quality and helpfulness of the feedback they receive from their peers and (4) the extent to which students regard peer-feedback as an important skill. The value of this Beliefs about Peer-Feedback Questionnaire (BPFQ) is discussed both in terms of future research and the practical insights it may offer higher education teaching staff. Show less
Blankenstein, F.M. van; Saab, N.; Rijst, R.M. van der; Danel, M.S.; Bakker-van den Berg, A.S.; Broek, P.W. van den 2019
Research skills are important for university graduates, but little is known about undergraduates' motivation for research. In this study, self-efficacy beliefs and intrinsic motivation for several... Show moreResearch skills are important for university graduates, but little is known about undergraduates' motivation for research. In this study, self-efficacy beliefs and intrinsic motivation for several research activities were measured three times during an undergraduate research project (N = 147 students). In order to promote self-efficacy for writing and collaboration, a collaboration script was developed and tested on half of the students. Twelve students were interviewed three times to gather in-depth information about motivational and self-efficacy beliefs. All measures except intrinsic motivation for research increased significantly during the project. Interview results suggest that enactive mastery and positive social interdependence promoted self-efficacy. Feelings of relatedness seemed to promote intrinsic motivation for writing. Lack of autonomy and low perceived relevance may explain why motivation for research remained stable. The script had no impact on self-efficacy beliefs. Relatedness, autonomy and positive social interdependence may boost motivation for research, but more evidence is needed. Show less
Huisman, B.; Saab, N.; Broek, P.W. van den; Driel, J. van 2019
Peer feedback is frequently implemented with academic writing tasks in higher education. However, a quantitative synthesis is still lacking for the impact that peer feedback has on students’... Show morePeer feedback is frequently implemented with academic writing tasks in higher education. However, a quantitative synthesis is still lacking for the impact that peer feedback has on students’ writing performance. The current study conveyed two types of observations. First, regarding the impact of peer feedback on writing performance, this study synthesized the results of 24 quantitative studies reporting on higher education students’ academic writing performance after peer feedback. Engagement in peer feedback resulted in larger writing improvements compared to (no-feedback) controls (g = 0.91 [0.41, 1.42]) and compared to self-assessment (g = 0.33 [0.01, 0.64]). Peer feedback and teacher feedback resulted in similar writing improvements (g = 0.46 [-0.44, 1.36]). The nature of the peer feedback significantly moderated the impact that peer feedback had on students’ writing improvement, whereas only a theoretically plausible, though non-significant moderating pattern was found for the number of peers that students engaged with. Second, this study shows that the number of well-controlled studies into the effects of peer feedback on writing is still low, indicating the need for more quantitative, methodologically sound research in this field. Findings and implications are discussed both for higher education teaching practice and future research approaches and directions. Show less
Martín-Arnal, L.A.; León, J.A.; Broek, P.W. van den; Olmos, R. 2019
Theories about visual narrative understanding accentuate the difference between patterns of reading comprehension in children and adults when they read text and images. This study was conducted to... Show moreTheories about visual narrative understanding accentuate the difference between patterns of reading comprehension in children and adults when they read text and images. This study was conducted to explore the differences in eye movement patterns when children and adults read different comic stories using a coherence/incoherence paradigm. A total of 63 participants, 31 children (10-12 years old) and 32 undergraduate university students from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, read 20 comic stories, each of them with both coherent and incoherent versions, for the two ending frames. Fixation durations, number of fixations, and number of regressions were recorded by an eye-tracker, Tobii x-120. A crossed random effects model was applied. Results showed that even though children reach a similar level of understanding than adults they spend more time and have longer fixations than adults, showing more effort to reach the whole comprehension of the stories. Besides, results do not detect significant differences between eye movements’ patterns in peak and release for the two groups studied, and therefore both components of the visual narrative grammar are considered equally relevant in the understanding of comics. Show less
Discourse comprehension involves the establishment of semantic or meaningful causal connections. The aim of this paper is to review four models that have contributed to the study of the... Show moreDiscourse comprehension involves the establishment of semantic or meaningful causal connections. The aim of this paper is to review four models that have contributed to the study of the establishment of these connections: the Causal Chain Model, the Causal Network Model, the Causal Inference Maker, and the Landscape Model. These models contribute to the facilitation of student learning, given that they provide useful tools for improvement of texts structure in order to promote the establishment of meaningful connections and the revision of students’ prior incorrect ideas, and for the design of interventions that promote the generation of inferences and the monitoring of comprehension. The presentation of their key ideas, of empirical support for their psychological validity, and of applications to education will allow us to highlight the contributions that these models make to our understanding of the importance of the processing of causality for discourse comprehension and the facilitation of student learning. Show less
Huisman, B.A.; Saab, N.; Broek, P.W. van den; Driel, J.H. van 2018
Peer feedback is frequently implemented with academic writing tasks in higher education. However, a quantitative synthesis is still lacking for the impact that peer feedback has on students’... Show morePeer feedback is frequently implemented with academic writing tasks in higher education. However, a quantitative synthesis is still lacking for the impact that peer feedback has on students’ writing performance. The current study conveyed two types of observations. First, regarding the impact of peer feedback on writing performance, this study synthesized the results of 24 quantitative studies reporting on higher education students’ academic writing performance after peer feedback. Engagement in peer feedback resulted in larger writing improvements compared to (no-feedback) controls (g = 0.91 [0.41, 1.42]) and compared to self-assessment (g = 0.33 [0.01, 0.64]). Peer feedback and teacher feedback resulted in similar writing improvements (g = 0.46 [-0.44, 1.36]). The nature of the peer feedback significantly moderated the impact that peer feedback had on students’ writing improvement, whereas only a theoretically plausible, though non-significant moderating pattern was found for the number of peers that students engaged with. Second, this study shows that the number of well-controlled studies into the effects of peer feedback on writing is still low, indicating the need for more quantitative, methodologically sound research in this field. Findings and implications are discussed both for higher education teaching practice and future research approaches and directions. Show less
Karlsson, A.K.J.; Broek, P.W. van den; Helder, A.; Hickendorff, M.; Koornneef, A.W.; Leijenhorst, L. van 2018
This study aimed to identify reading behavior profiles in nine-to-eleven year old children based on their think-aloud responses while reading narrative and expository texts. Three profiles emerged... Show moreThis study aimed to identify reading behavior profiles in nine-to-eleven year old children based on their think-aloud responses while reading narrative and expository texts. Three profiles emerged while reading narratives: Literal Readers, who stay close to the literal text by predominantly repeating it; Paraphrasing Readers, who extract meaning from the text by paraphrasing it; and Elaborating Readers, who use background knowledge to explain the text by generating inferences. The three profiles also emerged while reading expository text. Children generally exhibited the same profiles across the two text genres, however, expository texts elicited fewer correct inferences but more invalid inferences than did narratives, suggesting that children are influenced by text demands. Elaborating Readers had better word decoding skills, reading comprehension ability, and non-verbal reasoning ability than readers of the two other profiles, indicating a positive relation between inference generation and language abilities and cognitive resources. Show less
In two ERP experiments we examined local (recent text) and global (centrality) text influences on word-to-text integration. Participants read words that appeared across a sentence boundary or in... Show moreIn two ERP experiments we examined local (recent text) and global (centrality) text influences on word-to-text integration. Participants read words that appeared across a sentence boundary or in text-final position. In both cases, the word was either related (central) or unrelated (non-central) to the central theme of the passage. Additionally, words across a sentence boundary had an antecedent in the preceding sentence (local binding) or did not (baseline). Results indicate local-binding processes influence sentence-initial words with no additional effect of centrality, evidenced by a reduced N400 for central and non-central words with a local-binding opportunity relative to baseline. At text-final words, we observed a reduced P600 (Experiment 1) as well as an N400 (Experiment 2) for central relative to non-central words. This pattern suggests that integration across a sentence boundary is supported by local context and that over the course of continued reading, integration begins to reflect global text meaning. Show less
Blankenstein, F.M. van; Saab, N.; Rijst, R.M. van der; Danel, M.S.; Bakker-Van den Berg, A.S.; Broek, P.W. van den 2018
Research skills are important for university graduates, but little is known about undergraduates’ motivation for research. In this study, self-efficacy beliefs and intrinsic motivation for several... Show moreResearch skills are important for university graduates, but little is known about undergraduates’ motivation for research. In this study, self-efficacy beliefs and intrinsic motivation for several research activities were measured three times during an undergraduate research project (N = 147 students). In order to promote self-efficacy for writing and collaboration, a collaboration script was developed and tested on half of the students. Twelve students were interviewed three times to gather in-depth information about motivational and self-efficacy beliefs. All measures except intrinsic motivation for research increased significantly during the project. Interview results suggest that enactive mastery and positive social interdependence promoted self-efficacy. Feelings of relatedness seemed to promote intrinsic motivation for writing. Lack of autonomy and low perceived relevance may explain why motivation for research remained stable. The script had no impact on self-efficacy beliefs. Relatedness, autonomy and positive social interdependence may boost motivation for research, but more evidence is needed. Show less
Moort, M.L. van; Koornneef, A.; Broek, P.W. van den 2018
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... Show moreTo 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 validation is passive or reader-initiated. Therefore, we collected reading times in a self-paced experiment using expository texts containing information that conflicts with either the preceding text or readers’ background knowledge. Results show that text- and knowledge-based monitoring have different time courses and that working memory affects only knowledge-based monitoring. Furthermore, our results suggest that validation could occur at different levels of processing and perhaps draw on different mixes of passive and reader-initiated processes. These results contribute to our understanding of monitoring during reading and of how different sources of information can influence such monitoring. Show less
Huisman, B.A.; Saab, N.; Driel, J.H. van; Broek, P.W. van den 2018
Within the higher education context, peer feedback is frequently applied as an instructional method. Research on the learning mechanisms involved in the peer feedback process has covered aspects of... Show moreWithin the higher education context, peer feedback is frequently applied as an instructional method. Research on the learning mechanisms involved in the peer feedback process has covered aspects of both providing and receiving feedback. However, a direct comparison of the impact that providing and receiving peer feedback has on students’ writing performance is still lacking. The current study compared the writing performance of undergraduate students (N = 83) who either provided or received anonymous written peer feedback in the context of an authentic academic writing task. In addition, we investigated whether students’ peer feedback perceptions were related to the nature of the peer feedback they received and to writing performance. Results showed that both providing and receiving feedback led to similar improvements of writing performance. The presence of explanatory comments positively related both to how adequate students perceived the peer feedback to be, as well as to students’ willingness to improve based upon it. However, no direct relation was found between these peer feedback perceptions and students’ writing performance increase. Show less
Kraal, A.; Koornneef, A.W.; Saab, N.; Broek, P.W. van den 2017
This study examined to what extent children and adults differ in how they process negative emotions during reading, and how they rate their own and protagonists’ emotional states. Results show that... Show moreThis study examined to what extent children and adults differ in how they process negative emotions during reading, and how they rate their own and protagonists’ emotional states. Results show that both children’s and adults’ processing of target sentences was facilitated when they described negative emotions. Processing of spill-over sentences was facilitated for adults but inhibited for children, suggesting children needed additional time to process protagonists’ emotional states and integrate them into coherent mental representations. Children and adults were similar in their valence and arousal ratings as they rated protagonists’ emotional states as more negative and more intense than their own emotional states. However, they differed in that children rated their own emotional states as relatively neutral, whereas adults’ ratings of their own emotional states more closely matched the negative emotional states of the protagonists. This suggests a possible difference between children and adults in the mechanism underlying emotional inferencing. Show less
Huisman, B.A.; Saab, N.; Driel, J.H. van; Broek, P.W. van den 2017
There does not appear to be consensus on how to optimally match students during the peer feedback process: with same-ability peers (homogeneously) or different-ability peers (heterogeneously). In... Show moreThere does not appear to be consensus on how to optimally match students during the peer feedback process: with same-ability peers (homogeneously) or different-ability peers (heterogeneously). In fact, there appears to be no empirical evidence that either homogeneous or heterogeneous student matching has any direct effect on writing performance. The current study addressed this issue in the context of an academic writing task. Adopting a quasi-experimental design, 94 undergraduate students were matched in 47 homogeneous or heterogeneous reciprocal dyads, and provided anonymous, formative peer feedback on each other’s draft essays. The relations between students’ individual ability or dyad composition, feedback quality and writing performance were investigated. Neither individual ability nor dyad composition directly related to writing performance. Also, feedback quality did not depend on students’ individual ability or dyad composition, although trends in the data suggest that high-ability reviewers provided more content-related feedback. Finally, peer feedback quality was not related to writing performance, and authors of varying ability levels benefited to a similar extent from peer feedback on different aspects of the text. The results are discussed in relation to their implications for the instructional design of academic writing assignments that incorporate peer feedback. Show less
