ERIC Number: EJ1158886
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2017
Pages: 18
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-1088-8438
EISSN: N/A
Children's Visual Scanning of Textual Documents: Effects of Document Organization, Search Goals, and Metatextual Knowledge
Potocki, Anna; Ros, Christine; Vibert, Nicolas; Rouet, Jean-François
Scientific Studies of Reading, v21 n6 p480-497 2017
This study examines children's strategies when scanning a document to answer a specific question. More specifically, we wanted to know whether they make use of organizers (i.e., headings) when searching and whether strategic search is related to their knowledge of reading strategies. Twenty-six French fifth graders were asked to search single-page documents presented on the screen of an eye tracker in order to respond to questions requiring the location of information in either a single paragraph (Location questions) or multiple paragraphs (Comparison questions). Location questions were easier and faster to answer than Comparison questions. The presence of headers led to more selective reading strategies but did not significantly speed up the search. Strong individual differences were observed in children's scanning strategies: Some systematically fixated headers, whereas others did not. These differences were not significantly related to the participants' decoding or comprehension skills but rather to their knowledge of reading strategies.
Descriptors: Reading Strategies, Eye Movements, Text Structure, Information Processing, Elementary School Students, Foreign Countries, Reading Comprehension, Word Recognition, Reading Tests, Multiple Choice Tests, Educational Experiments, Decoding (Reading), Statistical Analysis, Time on Task, Individual Differences, Grade 5
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Elementary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: France
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A