73% of college age students use the internet more than the library to
conduct research; 9% use the library more (Jones, 2003).
“The paradox of interactive media is that being a user-control medium the
learner expects to have control, and yet the learner does not know enough
to be given full control” (Laurillard , 1998, p. 231).
According to the Rand Reading Study Group we must “design and
teach students to use flexible learning environments that customize
the text, activity, and sociocultural context in relation to goals and
individual learners’ needs and preferences” (Snow, 2001, p. 301).
Purpose: To present initial findings for a mixed-methods study
exploring the how adult developmental readers approach a generative
research task within an open internet environment.
Michelle Amos
Adjunct Professor, Academic Foundations, Santa Fe College
Adjunct Professor, Education, Saint Leo University
Doctoral Candidate, Adult Learning and Leadership, Teachers College
Since I am still revising my discussion and conclusions, I welcome any
insights or ideas you might have on my students’ enacted experiences.
Open-enrollment public institution in Long Island City,
Queens, New York.
 Majority of LGCC students are international students.

 In spring 2014, LGCC enrolled 19,752 students.
 111 different native languages and 157 different home
countries.
 White students are 12% of the student body.
 45% were born outside of the United States. Students from
South America constitute 21% of the student population, and
students from Asia constitute 17% of the population.
 78% of entering students in fall 2013 failed one or more of the
placement exams. In the 2008-2009 graduating class, 58% of
graduates began their coursework in a basic skills course.



The National Association of Developmental Education (NADE,
1995) has defined developmental education as characterized by
“a theoretical foundation in developmental psychology and
learning theory…sensitive and responsive to the individual
differences and special needs among learners.”
Enrollment of 60% of newly-enrolled community college
students an increase from the 2000 statistic of 42% (Bailey and
Cho, 2010, Issue Brief on Developmental Education in
Community College, prepared for The White House Summit on
Community College).
Learners who struggle in the “more constrained world of print”
lack the fluency and critical reading strategies that are required
to read effectively online (Leu and Kinzer, 2000; Eagleton,
Guinee, & Langlais, 2003).


the complex mix of critical reading and
information literacy used for selecting,
reading, and synthesizing multiple online
texts for a generative academic purpose
(drawing from Burbules, 1998).
It is not:
 eReading
 Browsing
 Facebook
“Comprehension occurs at the intersection of the
reader, the text, and the activity, all within a distinct
sociocultural setting” (Dalton and Proctor, 2008, p.
320).

Web context is not structured in a linear and hierarchical way, but
in such a way that texts, opinions, and ideas that are interlinked.
(Kuiper and Volman, 2011)

“Websites often have multiple goals, layered and overlapping,
overt and covert, in ways not typical of print” (Dalton and Proctor,
2008, p. 298).

“We cannot expect students to rely on new literacies when they
have never been taught the relevant knowledge, skills, or
attitudes” (Kuiper and Volman, 2008, p. 262).
Integration of Knowledge and Ideas
•
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.7 Integrate and evaluate content presented in
diverse media and formats, including visually and quantitatively, as well as in
words.
Research to Build and Present Knowledge
•
•
•
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.W.7 Conduct short as well as more sustained research
projects based on focused questions, demonstrating understanding of the
subject under investigation.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.W.8 Gather relevant information from multiple print
and digital sources, assess the credibility and accuracy of each source, and
integrate the information while avoiding plagiarism.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.W.9 Draw evidence from literary or informational texts
to support analysis, reflection, and research.
Comprehension and Collaboration
•
•
•
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.SL.1 Prepare for and participate effectively in a range
of conversations and collaborations with diverse partners, building on others’
ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.SL.2 Integrate and evaluate information presented in
diverse media and formats, including visually, quantitatively, and orally.
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.SL.3 Evaluate a speaker’s point of view, reasoning, and
use of evidence and rhetoric.
Amos Proposal
1
Rosenblatt’s Transactional Theory
Stance Development (1978)
Experiential Learning
Prior Knowledge
Technology
Content
Skills and Strategies
Organizing Structures
Prior Experiences
and Life History
Hyperreading
Stage (from Leu and
Zawilinski, 2007, p. 2)
Developing Important
Questions
Locating Information
Critically Analyzing
Information
Synthesizing Information
Comprehension occurs at
the intersection of the
reader, the text, and the
activity, all within a
distinct sociocultural
setting. (Dalton and Proctor,
2008, p. 320)
Communicating
Information
Reader Actions
Analysis of
prompt/assignment
Keyword Search
development
Selection of pages from
search results
Selection of relevant
hyperlinks
Identifying authors, biases,
and relevance of information
Integrating information from
diverse sites
Integrating information in
diverse forms
Generative tasks online or in
print to repurpose
information to fit
prompt/assignment/reader
needs
Sandberg’s Tasks of
Branching Literacy (2011)
See also Kuiper, Volman, and Terwel (2005);
Eschet-Alkali and Amichai-Hamburger (2004)
Print Text
Digital Text
Strategies Needed for
Scaffolded Digital Reading
Word Recognition and
Fluency determine text
choice
TTS mitigates limits—
How to vary use of TTS ,
listening comprehension may including level/frequency of
be better indicator of level
use and speed
Vocabulary is strongest
predictor of comprehension
Glossaries, multimedia, and
online search support comp.
Constant updating of skills to
accommodate evolving tools
Prior knowledge of content
and text structures predict
comprehension
Content knowledge can be
filled in with online
supports—web structure
knowledge more important
Non-linear, fluid text creates
greater need for selfregulation and (re)
orientation
(Meta) Cognitive strategies
may be included in text
prompts, summaries, etc.
These may be embedded to
prompt strategy use
Knowledge of resources,
(self) motivation to use these
Affect/Stance/Orientation
based on topic/genre/author
Multimedia, social,
interactivity, hyperlinks also
Adaptability to fluid
environments
Adapted from Dalton and Proctor, 2008, p. 305-306



86 students agreed to participate from four
sections of Essentials of Reading II (three
instructors)
Standard Measures: Department Pretest and
Department Posttest
Additional Measures:
 Survey (50 participants)
 Generative Task (64 participants)
 Interview (12 participants)

How do adult developmental students
describe and enact the process of
hyperreading?
 How do students express metacognitive
awareness of navigational choices?
 What influences students’ branching literacy?
 In what ways does prior strategy knowledge
impact student interaction with hyperreading
tasks?
Sub-Question One: How do Students Express
Metacognitive Awareness of Navigational
Choices?
 Goal-Setting Statements
 Task Completion
 Search Engine Preference
 Keywords



Net provides freedom to derive a personal path,
but adds a level of cognitive burden on learners.
(Patterson, 2000).
Readers have to question where they are, where
they have been (so they can review/reread), and
where they need to go (Chen, et al. , 2006).
Using metacognitive awareness inventory,
Schwartz, Anderson, Hong, Howard, and McGee
(2004) found a positive and significant
correlation between metacognitive ability and
successful navigational outcomes (p. 275).
TT: Some people use it to abuse; some people
use that for studies, but I prefer to learn
something new, something interesting from the
internet.
PR: I am not sure of how – I mean, how much
do you think a student is successful? If for me, if
a student gets information that they want…

Thus, teaching for choice and monitoring of goal
accomplishment seems critically important for
scaffolded digital reading and new literacies
(Dalton and Proctor, 2008, p. 319).
• Prior Experience matters. Users with more
search experience plan in their searching
behavior while novices hardly are driven by what
they see on screen at any given moment in time
(Navarro-Prieto, Scaife, and Rogers, 1999).
JR: What I do is, I research like I did this with Bing, Google and try to
like read four different pages and that’s where—mostly I go to four,
more than that I don’t really go. But with four pages to me it’s enough
to know what is looking for, trying to see if this page agrees with this or
close to this or close to this. If it’s everything kind of close so that
means, “Okay, I guess I know it’s what I’m looking for.”
AL: Maybe I feel my feeling.
INTERVIEWER: What feeling?
AL: Like maybe the information answered my question. I know how to
do the homework or something.
AL: Maybe compare the information and then choose the best one.
INTERVIEWER: How do you know which one is best?
AL: Feeling.
EP: I like to use, I don’t know- I will usually go to Google. The
first thing I will do is Google, I type in what the question is
asking me.
TN: Firstly, I go through the meanings like “manned”,
“spaceflight” is simple but in case like “manned”. And then I
start with finding “manned spaceflight fund”. Forget the
United States of America and just going to that and just
putting in United States government, “views on spaceflight”,
like that.
JC: Oh yeah, I think to grab the keywords is the most
important fact that students have to remember. It’s really
helpful. If they cannot grab the keywords, they cannot find
the information online .

Sox and Rubenstein-Avila (2009)
 Provide simple, direct, step-by-step instructions that
avoid idiomatic expressions and phrasal verbs: graphic
organizers to guide work efforts and organize
information; multimedia features that are directly related
to content; a brief description of linked websites; bilingual
dictionaries; and definitions of key concepts.
Sub-Question Two: What influences students’
branching literacy?
 Search Results
 Hyperlink Selection
JD: I pretty much like, clicking the first three and they give me, it doesn’t
satisfy what I’m looking for and then skip, go to the next one.
MG: I read the title, the bigger words. Or sometimes they put the first
sentences, and if it says something more specific, what I'm trying to look
for, I choose that.
INTERVIEWER: Oh, at the top of the page.
PR: Uh-huh. People mostly click and it might…maybe this mean I can
believe that information, because most people click on it.
NT: Well, I try to go to...I think like you could go to Government sites
where if it’s say something related to the Government then that’s the
best website to go, and you get a... you get the right information so...

Students look for actual sentences on the
screen that contained the answer to their
task (Fidel, 1999).

Students try to find a concrete answer
instead of collecting information from
which they could deduce an answer
themselves (Bilal, 2001).
Students use inappropriate criteria to evaluate sites—
equating quantity with quality.
 Most students either do not look at the reliability and
correctness of the information or use incorrect criteria in
their assessment (Agosto, 2002).
 All results of a search engine are qualitatively good and
a Web site with a great deal of text must be good
(Lorenzen, 2001).
 Shenton and Dixon (2003) none of the nineteen 10th and
12th graders interviewed reported attempting to verify
the accuracy of Web information in any way.

EP: Because let’s say like pictures do attract me
because you know, you could tell a lot by a picture.
JR: What it makes me think usually to when it appears
like this is I follow like this and if I follow another link
what it makes me think is like maybe the next link is
going to tell me to follow another link and another
link.
 INTERVIEWER: So you don’t want to get too far?
 JR: Exactly. I’d rather to go to straight see what I get.

Sub-Question Three: In what ways does prior strategy
knowledge impact student interaction with
hyperreading tasks?
 Prior Educational Technology Experience
 Prior Academic Strategies
 Social Support Systems
 Technologies Support Strategies
 Video to Build Background Knowledge
 Wikipedia
 Rule-Following versus Strategy Use
TN: We had computers, but it was so old. They
didn’t even work. They were a bunch of computers
not working. It was a real sorry state.
NT: High school experience... it is totally different
than you know the technology at that time. We
actually had no access to computer or Internet. I
finished high school in Romania.
AL: My high school experience is in China. In China
we don’t use computers so much like here. We
don’t do anything like…We don’t use much about
the computers
JC: Yeah, I would discuss with my classmate what the topic
means, because I totally messed up with the topic…They use the
man instead of the female attendant in the flight. So then I asked
my classmate what the heck is that question. I was so confused of
what is the topic.
JR: Which was Kingsborough College but I didn’t feel familiar
with the students and with the staff all the way down there so I
came here. I’ve been here before taking other courses, and I see
how I feel familiar with every people here. So that’s why I chose
to come to LaGuardia to start with my career.




Dictionaries
Thesauri
Translators
Video

“Most vocabulary supports require strategic
knowledge about how things work on the
Internet, and specifically, knowledge of tools
and social resources which are in a state of
flux and change. This type of knowledge is
typically not taught in classrooms, and, in
fact, teachers may have limited experience
using these tools themselves” (Dalton and
Proctor, 2008, p. 312).

What, if any, connection is there between
non-academic technology experience and
hyperreading?
 How does previous experience with technology
affect readers’ approach to hyperreading tasks?
 How does reader stance—aesthetic or efferent, as
defined by Rosenblatt (1978)—impact
hyperreading navigation?
Sub-question one: How does previous
experience with technology affect readers’
approach to hyperreading tasks?

Cell Phone Usage
 Search
 Edit
 Home language use
 Social Media
 Translators/Dictionaries
Sub-question two: How does reader stance—
aesthetic or efferent, as defined by Rosenblatt
(1978)—impact hyperreading navigation?



Efferent Stance
Aesthetic Stance
Conflict between Reader Stances






Interference of Stances
Separation by Purpose
Reading Preference
eReading Advantages
Print Advantages
Correlation between Stances and Achievement
The attitude that a reader brings to the reading
task:
 Transactional Theory of Reading: aesthetic or
efferent stance (Rosenblatt, 1978, drawing from
Dewey and Kolb)

Deep attention is essential for coping with
complex phenomena… hyper attention is useful
for its flexibility in switching between different
information streams, its quick grasp of gist of
material, and its ability to move rapidly among
and between different kinds of text (Hayles,
2010).
Task
Efferent
Word Games
News Reading
School Research
Aesthetic
Blog Posting
Product Research
Personal Research
Email
Social Media
Online Video
Streamed Video
Shared Photos
Video Chat
Multiplayer Game
Percent Participating
in last week
Percent of these
in English
In Another
Language
In Both
42.9
83.7
90.0
61.9
53.7
75.6
4.8
7.3
2.2
33.3
39.0
22.2
51.0
83.7
92.0
93.8
87.8
70.0
84.0
68.0
80.0
44.0
52.0
53.7
58.7
42.2
46.5
42.9
45.2
29.4
17.5
63.6
4.0
7.3
8.7
0
7.0
0
7.1
0
15
0
44.0
39.0
32.6
57.8
46.5
57.1
47.6
70.6
67.5
36.4

At most colleges within the US, students’ use of
technology for nonacademic reasons far outweigh
their uses for academic reasons. (Wilber, 2008)

There is a “double life in terms of literacy practices
and values” –A discrepancy between the literacy
and technology practices required of college
students for academic purposes in formal-education
contexts, and the technology practices these same
students pursue as part of their own interests and in
their own time (Hawisher and Selfe, 2004, p. 661).
CF: Yeah. Like because I'm easily distracted. Sometimes it's like a
little hard. Especially like working on computer at home. Reading off
a book, I know I'll stay focussed because I'll turn off my phone, turn off
the laptop and everything. If I'm doing, working in something on the
computer, I'm bound to get curious and check my Facebook or email.
JR: Okay, I liked it, but at the end I had to research everything and kind
of hated the entire book so I was like, “This is how it ends, this is the
story.”
PR: I use Facebook to see news also. For example, in my country –
yeah, to see news and some – how do you say, some secret video that
– you know in my country now, they get into problem like political
problems. From news, they didn’t have to say they block people from
news. Yeah, two weeks ago, there was – how do you say, there was
curfew. People in my country can’t watch television and other times
they have to stay in the…
AL: My phone just for Facebook, to chat, to talk to
friends. The computer I just use for study and watch TV.
CF: Yeah, I like to read. But it's cool to do it, like a
computer online, like I said when I'm learning stuff,
sometimes I'll use the computer, but if I'm reading a
personal book, for my own personal reason, I'll read a
book because it's easier.
JR: About reading, I do both, either Spanish or English.
But speaking is different because I would say I call my
mum three to four times a week and I usually talk to her--
JD: Like when you’re reading passages, it’s all like pure text.
There’s no images or anything there at all. Sometimes it gets
boring, so on the internet, when you read on new current
events, there’s a picture, “What’s going on?” Like conflict in
Russia, you’ll see a picture or so. It kind of gives you an end to
the story, the whole details.
JD: Yeah, it is based on the images that you saw. Compared to
the reading passage, “Ahh, this blablablabla.” It’s like…
EP: I prefer reading online than books.
EP: I guess the light; it does not put me to sleep because if you
have a book just goes like...
EP: You have a light; you just got to stand up, you know?
EP: They ask for it, and I like to highlight it what I
use. And when I use the research paper, I always tie
it back because it’s in my mine, it’s the research, so
I usually tie back like all the research said,
according to the research, this is stated…
PR: First of all, because of my language. When I
read through the computers, I cannot mark some
vocabulary and actually, professor makes me like to
look up the vocabulary like from the paper to the
dictionary. So it is easier for me to read on the
paper where I can underline some main ideas.
Moderate 0.447313 Correlation between academic and social use
Weak
0.370038 Correlation between social use and pretest score
Weak
0.255719 Correlation between average tech use and reading score
Weak
0.229506 Correlation between academic use and pretest score
Weak
0.222073 Correlation between #high use devices and reading score
Minimal
0.209322 Correlation between social use and reading score
Minimal
0.200781 Correlation between academic use and posttest summary score
Minimal
-0.20509 Correlation between #high use devices and pretest summary score
Weak
-0.2331
Correlation between average tech use and pretest summary score
What relationship exists among hyperreading
choices, metacognitive awareness of these
decisions, and generative writing product quality?

Correlation of Reading Tasks and Writing Subset
Scores
Writing Process


Language Background
Influence of Limited English Input on Acquisition

Self-Deprecation

Strong
0.750021 Correlation between writing and online total
Moderate 0.413472 Correlation between posttest and writing online
Weak
Weak
0.391305 Correlation between posttest summary and
writing online
0.368869 Correlation reading online and writing online
Minimal
0.088551 Correlation between pretest and writing online
Minimal
0.027396 Correlation between pretest summary and
writing online
TT: I don’t like to copy. I want to write what I know…I keep in my
mind and then start to write…I start to write step by step in my
note or white paper. Next or last thing of the thing I see maybe theif I see that everywhere is the same, same concept or same
thing…For me, first you look, don’t copy from directly and second
of all, you keep your idea from all of the links in your mind, and if
you want to copy, don’t copy the sentences or something just putokay number one, this is important; number two, this is important;
number three, this is important. Write it, then think about this and
then again if you need to look at the site, you look up but don’t
copy, don’t cheat. Just write yourself whatever you understand.
JC: On a piece of sheet…So we cannot copy from a content, from a
website. We were in trouble if you do that in college…But you can
paraphrase it…I was grabbing the keywords and my own words to
make my own sentence.
AL: Yes. But mostly I talk on Facebook (in Mandarin). I don’t have a
lot of Chinese friends in here. And I have a job, so I talk in English
with my job…It’s good you can practice English when you talk to
people.
TT:Yes, from you know, my native language, here we can buy the
newspaper, magazine, a book, everything; I learn, I read it.
JR: Exactly, that is my culture. Because I don’t want when I go back
there, and I wouldn’t be able to talk to them because most of my
family they don’t really speak Spanish so I need to communicate
with them in my dialect. So that’s the thing, it keeps me doing this.
PR: For me, English is my first problem
HS: So I struggled, “Oh, how can I explain this in English?”
TT: My English is not so good, I'm telling you.

What correlation, if any, exists between
measures of student reading comprehension
and student achievement in an openenvironment hyperreading task?
0.191155
correlation between posttest summary and online
0.180382
Correlation between pretest and reading online
0.165798
correlation between posttest and online total
0.0685
correlation between pretest and online total
0.011547
Correlation between pretest summary and reading online
0.009975
Correlation between posttest summary and reading online
-0.04323
Correlation between posttest and reading online
-0.06949
correlation between pretest summary and online

The findings of research emphasize the need
to teach students how to critically assess the
reliability or value of the information they
find on the Web by understanding not only its
textual but also its nontextual features such
as images, links, and interactivity. (Burbules,
1998; Burbules & Callister, 2000)

“It’s not just point and click. It’s point, read,
think, and click” (Tapscott, 1998, p. 63).