The effects of purpose instructions and strategy-focused instructions on reading processes and products

In educational settings, students read for multiple purposes, such as preparing for an exam, practicing a new reading strategy, writing an essay, and more. Because reading is a goal-directed activity, providing students with task instructions can help them create goals for reading and develop a plan to meet these goals. In the current experiment, we investigated the effects of purpose instructions and strategy-focused instructions on cognitive processes during reading and learning from a single text. Participants were randomly assigned to one cell of a 2 x 2 factorial design. Participants in all four conditions provided typed constructed responses during reading and completed a comprehension and transfer test after reading. For purpose instructions, participants either received information about the post-reading assessment or were just asked to read (control). For strategy-focused instructions, participants received either self-explanation instructions or think-aloud instructions (control). We coded the quantity and quality of the cognitive processes in readers’ constructed responses. Self-explanation instructions promoted the quantity and quality of cognitive processes students used during reading. Also, purpose and self-explanation instructions interacted, which promoted the quality of cognitive processes and reading comprehension compared to purpose-only instructions or self-explanation-only instructions. These findings indicated that purpose instructions and self-explanation instructions differentially affected reading processes and reading outcomes. These results underscore that different task instructions have varying effects, which has important implications for theory and practice.

This is a post-peer-review, pre-copyedit version of an article published in Reading and Writing. The final authenticated version is available online at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11145-023-10464-w

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Work Title The effects of purpose instructions and strategy-focused instructions on reading processes and products
Access
Open Access
Creators
  1. Bailing Lyu
  2. Matthew T. McCrudden
  3. Catherine Bohn-Gettler
Keyword
  1. Task instructions
  2. Reading comprehension
  3. Reading processes
  4. Self-explanation
License In Copyright (Rights Reserved)
Work Type Article
Publisher
  1. Reading and Writing
Publication Date July 14, 2023
Publisher Identifier (DOI)
  1. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11145-023-10464-w
Deposited March 18, 2024

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Version 1
published

  • Created
  • Added MS_R_R_2023_6_19_preprint.pdf
  • Added Creator B. *Lyu
  • Added Creator Matthew T. McCrudden
  • Added Creator C. Bohn-Gettler
  • Published
  • Updated Keyword, Publication Date Show Changes
    Keyword
    • Task instructions, Reading comprehension, Reading processes, Self-explanation
    Publication Date
    • 2023-01-01
    • 2023-07-14
  • Renamed Creator Bailing Lyu Show Changes
    • B. *Lyu
    • Bailing Lyu
  • Renamed Creator Catherine Bohn-Gettler Show Changes
    • C. Bohn-Gettler
    • Catherine Bohn-Gettler
  • Updated