Meta-analytic research with undergraduate students reveals they tend to overestimate their text comprehension to a higher extent when they read texts in digital as opposed to printed format. This inaccurate metacomprehension of students' own understanding could lead them to ineffective reading and studying decisions, such as early termination of a rather complex text. This study investigates the effectiveness of delayed keyword generation in improving absolute metacomprehension accuracy among lower-secondary (seventh- and eighth-grade) and middle-secondary (ninth- and tenth-grade) students when reading in print and on a tablet. Findings showed that lower-secondary students in the intervention group improved absolute metacomprehension accuracy compared to the control group. A similar trend appeared among middle-secondary students, where the intervention group showed lower predictions of performance but similar comprehension outcomes across groups. Contrary to our expectations, the intervention's effect was independent of reading medium (print vs. tablet), likely due to comparable reading performance across both formats. These findings suggest that the delayed-keyword generation effectively enhances adolescents' comprehension monitoring, irrespective of the reading medium. La investigaci & oacute;n metanal & iacute;tica con estudiantes universitarios revela que estos tienden a sobrestimar en mayor medida su comprensi & oacute;n lectora cuando leen textos digitales, en comparaci & oacute;n a los textos impresos en papel. Esta metacomprensi & oacute;n imprecisa de la propia comprensi & oacute;n podr & iacute;a llevar al estudiante a una lectura y a decisiones de estudio ineficaces, como la conclusi & oacute;n temprana de un texto bastante complejo. Este estudio investiga la efectividad de la generaci & oacute;n diferida de palabras clave para mejorar la precisi & oacute;n absoluta de la metacomprensi & oacute;n de los estudiantes de primer ciclo (Cursos 1 y 2) y segundo ciclo (Cursos 3 y 4) de Educaci & oacute;n Secundaria en Espa & ntilde;a (equivalentes a los grados 7-10 en el sistema anglosaj & oacute;n) en la lectura de textos impresos en papel y de textos digitales le & iacute;dos en tabletas. Los resultados revelaron que los alumnos de primer ciclo de secundaria en el grupo de intervenci & oacute;n mejoraron su precisi & oacute;n absoluta de la metacomprensi & oacute;n frente al grupo control. Entre los estudiantes de segundo ciclo se apreci & oacute; una tendencia similar, ya que el grupo de intervenci & oacute;n mostr & oacute; un nivel inferior de predicci & oacute;n de rendimiento, pero se observaron niveles similares de comprensi & oacute;n en todos los grupos. A diferencia de lo esperado, el efecto de la intervenci & oacute;n fue independiente del medio de lectura (papel/tableta), posiblemente debido al nivel de rendimiento lector comparable en ambos formatos. Este resultado sugiere que la generaci & oacute;n diferida de palabras clave mejora con eficacia la precisi & oacute;n de la autopercepci & oacute;n de la comprensi & oacute;n lectora de los adolescentes, irrespectivamente del medio de lectura.

This study investigated how reading medium (print vs. digital) and communicative purpose (informative vs. persuasive) shape writing processes and outcomes in integrative academic tasks. Eighty-one university students read three source texts in print or digitally and, after random assignment, produced either an informative or persuasive synthesis within a 2 & times;2 between-subjects design. Keystroke logging recorded pausing across three writing stages, indexing planning, translation, and revision. Text quality was scored with holistic rubrics capturing discourse features and integration of sources. Reading medium significantly influenced pausing: students who read in print paused longer during writing, yet medium had no effect on overall text quality. Task purpose mattered: persuasive tasks yielded higher-quality formal writing, whereas scores reflecting level of source integration did not differ. No interaction between reading medium and task purpose emerged. When controlling for reading comprehension, working memory, and planning ability, the main effects of medium and task purpose remained, but period-specific pausing effects were no longer significant. Findings highlight distinct roles for reading medium and task purpose in shaping writing behavior and performance. The results support cautious causal interpretations and suggest that incorporating digital reading and varying task types may enhance academic writing in higher education, informing curriculum design and assessment.

Many high school students struggle to efficiently read complex digital documents that require different selfregulating processes, such as identifying main ideas or integrating multiple documents. To foster these processes, we designed and tested a long-term dynamic approach in which 700 students from grades 7 to 10 answered adjunct comprehension questions and received immediate feedback either about the performance (corrective) or about different processes and strategies to answer the questions (elaborated). Surprisingly, the effect of feedback on comprehension scores varied across samples. Elaborated feedback had a positive impact on 7th-8th grade students' self-regulation and comprehension scores, whereas Corrective Feedback yielded greater improvements in these domains for 9th-10th grade students. The effects were partially mediated by students' reviewing time in both samples. We discuss the need to adapt dynamic assessment interventions to students' educational level. Educational relevance statement: In today's digital age, high school students face significant challenges in selfregulating their reading comprehension process. Addressing this particular concern, the current study examines how answering questions and receiving feedback while reading digital texts can enhance self-regulation and comprehension in high school students. Of particular relevance for instruction was the fact that different types of feedback had opposing effects depending on students grade level. Providing elaborated information aimed at guiding text processing to solve a comprehension question (e.g., "It is important to combine the information in the text with your own knowledge") supported students in their early years of high school, while simply stating whether the response was correct or incorrect worked better for those in the final years of high school. These results can help educators make informed decisions about designing feedback in digital environments to promote self-regulation and comprehension.

The rapid expansion of digital reading in schools has outpaced the development of empirical evidence about how digital learning environments can effectively support reading comprehension for diverse learners. This study examined the effectiveness of a classroom-based digital reading intervention and investigated whether key instructional design features—question placement and feedback type—interact with students’ initial digital reading competence. A total of 1227 secondary-school students (Grades 7–10) from 12 schools participated in a cluster-randomized trial including four intervention conditions and a waiting-list control group. Within the intervention group, classrooms were assigned to a 2 × 2 factorial design manipulating the placement of comprehension questions (embedded vs. post-reading) and feedback type (corrective vs. elaborated). Over a 16-week period, students completed weekly digital reading units consisting of one or more texts accompanied by comprehension questions designed to engage strategic reading processes. Digital reading comprehension was assessed using a standardized measure administered before and after the intervention. Linear mixed-effects models showed that baseline digital reading competence was the strongest predictor of post-test performance. No overall intervention effects emerged across conditions. However, for older students (Grades 9–10), a significant interaction indicated that the combination of embedded questions and corrective feedback was associated with comparatively stronger post-test outcomes, particularly for students with higher baseline competence. These findings highlight the importance of considering learner characteristics and instructional design when developing digital reading interventions and provide insights for refining literacy practices within Multi-Tiered Systems of Support frameworks.

For decades, researchers have assumed that readers' eye movements reflect their understanding of a text. Surprisingly, empirical tests of such association are mostly recent, and we still don't have robust evidence about which eye movements indicators are associated with reading comprehension outcomes. We explored this issue by conducting meta-analyses on the relationship between eye-movement measures and reading comprehension outcomes. We conducted a search across major databases with keywords limiting the search for eye-tracking studies (e.g., eye-tracking, eye movements) and reading comprehension (reading, learning, text comprehension). The initial search yielded 15022 results after duplicate removal, and a total of 135 articles were included after abstract and full text screening. From these, data from 36 studies were available yielding a total of 104 separate datasets. Due to limited data availability across reader groups, text types, and tasks, we focused the analyses on data from adults reading expository texts followed by multiple choice questions which represented 54% and 78% of the data for L1 and L2 readers respectively. We ran random effect models for individual eye-movement measures for L1 and L2 readers separately. The results provide candidates for eye-movement indicators of reading comprehension across languages. The findings also highlight important gaps in the literature such as studies of developing readers using a variety of texts and tasks. Finally, we specify methodological considerations for future eye-tracking and reading comprehension research.

Digital reading has been widely linked to more superficial processing and higher frequency of multitasking than print reading. These aspects have been extensively examined in single-text research, indicating detrimental effects on reading comprehension and metacomprehension, particularly when reading on digital and when engaging in multitasking. Nevertheless, much less is known about how these factors interact and influence readers in multiple-text contexts. Given that today’s readers are regularly exposed to multiple, and often conflicting, sources of information, it is crucial to identify factors that may obstruct accurate self-monitoring and understanding. This study examined how reading media (print vs. tablet) and multitasking while reading affected intertextual comprehension and metacomprehension accuracy among 151 Spanish secondary school students (from grade 8 to 10). Our findings show that multitasking hindered intertextual comprehension more in the print condition, whereas tablet readers demonstrated no notable decline. Unexpectedly, neither reading media nor multitasking significantly influenced metacomprehension scores, pointing to a general difficulty among students in accurately assessing their own understanding. These results suggest that students’ expectations about different reading media may shape how they experience and manage distractions. Furthermore, this study shows that metacognitive overconfidence persists in multiple-text scenarios, as students tend to overlook conflicting information without being aware.

Background The idea that screens ‘stole children's focus’ and that reading books, in contrast, stimulates selective attention is theoretically complex and has largely been ignored in empirical tests. Research has identified positive associations between reading habits and various dimensions of attention in children, but most research is restricted to book or print reading habits, with limited evidence for digital habits. Methods We tested the assumption that selective attention (students' ability to focus on relevant information and to ignore distractors) may mediate the relation between print and digital reading habits and comprehension in a longitudinal study that analysed 654 fourth and 635 fifth grade students at the end of their school year (T1) and 1 year later (T2). Results Overall, and contrary to our expectations, the longitudinal associations for reading habits in T1 to selective attention and reading comprehension in T2 were mostly null. Digital reading habits for academic purposes in T1 were negatively associated with reading comprehension in T2, for students assessed from 4th to 5th grade, but not those from 5th to 6th grade. In addition, students' selective attention was positively associated with reading comprehension. Conclusions To conclude, we discuss the need to search for mediators other than selective attention on the associations between reading habits and comprehension and highlight the need to identify key developmental milestones during primary school that may be accomplished to be ready to take full advantage of digital reading practices.

Despite past efforts to investigate how students' interactions with digital devices shape their digital reading comprehension skills, we still need more knowledge about struggling readers in digital reading contexts. Previous research has shown that digital reading comprehension is negatively associated with general digital device usage and positively associated with some academic digital reading activities in the general student population. We used data from ePIRLS 2016 to investigate whether such patterns are related differently to struggling and nonstruggling readers. For struggling readers, we found that digital reading comprehension was negatively associated with the general use of digital devices for schoolwork. There was no statistically significant relationship between academic digital reading activities and digital reading comprehension. In contrast, this relationship was positively associated with digital reading comprehension among nonstruggling readers. We discuss how typical digital classroom activities may be differently related to digital reading comprehension depending on students' print reading comprehension skills.

This study addressed an issue relevant to information and research literacy: how students cope with the challenges of reading a one-sided informational text that is combined with ambiguous graphical information. The topic discussed in the text was the impact of digitalization on students' reading comprehension, and 120 university students were randomly assigned to reading a version of the text arguing that digitalization has had a positive impact or a version of the text arguing that digitalization has had a negative impact. It was found that students largely ignored or gave a distorted interpretation of the ambiguous graph in postreading written reports about the topic, seldom integrating the ambiguous graph in their written reports by trying to reconcile the text-graph information or taking a critical stance toward the textual information. Furthermore, when reproducing the ambiguous graph from memory, students' reproductions were strongly biased in the direction of the textual argument that they read. Students' prior beliefs about the topic did not moderate the effects of the textual argument on their written reports or their graph reproductions, with the textual argument influencing how they considered (or did not consider) the ambiguous graph in their written reports and their graph reproductions independent of their topic beliefs. Students' tendency to disregard the ambiguity of the graph and uncritically rely on the textual information alone may raise concerns because the development of information and research literacy requires that students learn to take data presentations that challenge strong one-sided textual interpretations of research findings into consideration.

BackgroundMisconceptions are unjustified beliefs about a topic. Nonetheless, they are pervasive among educational practitioners. Although the internet can be a powerful tool to learn and debunk misconceptions, their use requires competencies like navigating through search engine results pages (SERPs), evaluating the reliability of content, and integrating meaning across varied perspectives. Furthermore, as most information on the internet is available in English, L2 readers might face additional barriers, limiting their possibilities to benefit from content debunking misconceptions.ObjectivesOur premise was that digital reading competencies could be modelled through videos of eye movements (EMMEs), which would promote misconception change after reading webpages that either corroborated or debunked the Learning Styles (LS) misconception.MethodsUndergraduate students, speakers of English as L2, watched EMMEs or an instructional video, read the webpages while their eye movements were recorded, wrote an essay, and answered a memory task and a misconception posttest.Results and ConclusionsEMMEs had a positive effect on increased time inspecting the SERP, decreased fixation on non-reliable pages, and misconception change. No effects were found in integrated understanding, nor on source memory. Although L2 level predicted performance in the learning measures, it did not mediate the effect of EMMEs on these measures. These results confirm previous research on learning and extend the effects of EMMEs to misconception change in L2 contexts.

Research on the relationship between media multitasking and text comprehension has largely focused on the consequences of multitasking concurrently to a reading episode. Little is known about the relation between media multitasking habits and text comprehension and metacomprehension. We conducted three experiments involving different student samples (undergraduates and secondary-school students). Participants read expository texts varying in length, difficulty, and the reading medium. Experiment 3 varied the presence of a distraction task. After reading, the students predicted their performance in a subsequent text comprehension test and then completed the test. Main results showed a negative association between media multitasking habits and text comprehension across all the experiments, even after controlling for students' sustained attention and short-term verbal memory capacity, reading comprehension skills, and prior knowledge. The association between media multitasking habits and metacomprehension varied across experiments. We discuss potential mechanisms underlying these relationships and suggest lines to further explore this phenomenon. Educational relevance and implications: Our study identified a consistent negative association between the media multitasking reading habits of secondary-school and undergraduate students' and their text comprehension and metacomprehension. The relationship between undergraduate students' metacomprehension and media multitasking habits was more pronounced when reading long texts on screen (vs. in print). We found that text difficulty and engaging in a secondary off-task activity while reading did not significantly influence any of the associations. Although our results do not imply causation due to their correlational nature, they do support the idea of motivating and training students to minimize multitasking behaviour during reading to avoid potential detrimental effects on their reading comprehension skills.

Nowadays, children's reading habits extend beyond traditional printed texts, embracing new practices and forms through digital devices. The influence of such new digital reading habits on reading motivation and comprehension development remains largely underexplored. This study aimed to explore reciprocal causal paths between digital reading habits, reading comprehension and intrinsic reading motivation. To do so, we analyzed longitudinal data of 908 Spanish students from Grades 4 to 6. We estimated random-intercept and cross-lagged panel models to examine long-term associations between our main variables. Results revealed null causal paths between digital reading habits and reading comprehension for both leisure and academic purposes. After controlling for autoregressive effects and considering only within-person variance, one significant path remained from academic digital reading habits in Grade 5 to decreased intrinsic reading motivation in Grade 6. Our study provides new insights about the role of digital reading habits in the development of reading comprehension and intrinsic reading motivation in primary school students. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

Children's reading habits can contribute to the development of reading comprehension skills. Increased digitalization during the last years has introduced new reading practices. Accordingly, an adequate measurement is necessary to accurately examine the current reading habits of children for different purposes and across different media. Here we present the Multidimensional Reading Habits Instrument (MRHI), which is composed of two questionnaires that differentiate between purpose (leisure and academic) and reading media (print and digital formats). A total of 2,077 Spanish children from fourth to sixth grade participated in the validation process. CFA with class cluster control for each questionnaire evidenced good internal structure. The relationship between the proposed reading habits dimensions, reading comprehension and reading motivation evidenced adequate concurrent validity of the MRHI. We discuss the possible MRHI uses for practitioners and researchers in primary school. Los h & aacute;bitos lectores de los ni & ntilde;os pueden contribuir al desarrollo de las habilidades de comprensi & oacute;n lectora. La creciente digitalizaci & oacute;n de los & uacute;ltimos a & ntilde;os ha introducido nuevas pr & aacute;cticas de lectura. Por consiguiente, es necesaria una medici & oacute;n adecuada para examinar con precisi & oacute;n los h & aacute;bitos lectores actuales de los ni & ntilde;os para diferentes prop & oacute;sitos y en diferentes medios. Aqu & iacute; presentamos el Instrumento multidimensional de h & aacute;bitos lectores (Multidimensional Reading Habits Instrument, MRHI) el cual est & aacute; compuesto por dos cuestionarios que diferencian entre prop & oacute;sito (ocio y acad & eacute;mico) y medios de lectura (formatos impresos y digitales). En el proceso de validaci & oacute;n participaron 2,077 ni & ntilde;os espa & ntilde;oles de cuarto a sexto grado de primaria. El an & aacute;lisis factorial confirmatorio (AFC) con control del factor de agrupaci & oacute;n por clase para cada cuestionario mostr & oacute; una adecuada estructura interna. La relaci & oacute;n entre las dimensiones propuestas de h & aacute;bitos de lectura, comprensi & oacute;n lectora y motivaci & oacute;n lectora evidenci & oacute; una validez concurrente adecuada del MRHI. Discutimos los posibles usos de MRHI para profesionales e investigadores en la escuela primaria.

A core feature of Autistic Spectrum Condition (ASC) is the presence of difficulties in social interactions. This can be explained by an atypical attentional processing of social information: individuals with ASC may show problems with orienting attention to socially relevant stimuli and/or inhibiting their attentional responses to irrelevant ones. To shed light on this issue, we examined attentional orienting and inhibitory control to emotional stimuli (angry, happy, and neutral faces). An antisaccade task (with both prosaccade and antisacade blocks) was applied to a final sample of 29 children with ASC and 27 children with typical development (TD). Whereas children with ASC committed more antisaccade errors when seeing angry faces than happy or neutral ones, TD children committed more antisaccade errors when encountering happy faces than neutral faces. Furthermore, latencies in the prosaccade and antisaccade blocks were longer in children with ASC and they were associated with the severity of ASC symptoms. Thus, children with ASC showed an impaired inhibitory control when angry faces were presented. This bias to negative high-arousal information is congruent with affective information-processing theories on ASC, suggesting that threatening stimuli induce an overwhelming response in ASC. Therapeutic strategies where train the shift attention to emotional stimuli (i.e. faces) may improve ASC symptomatology and their socials functioning.

In this commentary, I aim to explore two enduring influences of Walter Kintsch, one scientific and one personal: his impact on the subfield of multiple document comprehension and his influence on my approach to mentoring junior researchers. Throughout his career, Walter primarily focused on understanding how individuals comprehend individual texts, where a single author typically conveys a coherent and comprehensive message. However, as I shall review, his influence transcends this domain and extends to efforts aimed at deciphering how people understand and integrate multiple documents from different authors, that often provide complementary or conflicting messages.

With the diversification of Internet uses, online content type has become richer. Alongside organic results, search engine results pages now provide tools to improve information searching and learning. The People also ask (PAA) box is intended to reduce users' cognitive costs by offering easily accessible information. Nevertheless, there has been scant research on how users actually process it, compared with more traditional content type (i.e., organic results and online documents). The present eye-tracking study explored this question by considering the search context (complex lookup task vs. exploratory task) and users' prior domain knowledge (high vs. low). Main results show that users fixated the PAA box and online documents more to achieve exploratory goals, and fixated organic results more to achieve lookup goals. Users with low knowledge process PAA content at an early stage in their search contrary to their counterparts with high knowledge. Given these results, information system developers should diversify PAA content according to search context and users’ prior domain knowledge.

As handheld devices, such as tablets, become a common tool in schools, a critical and urgent question for the research community is to assess their potential impact on educational outcomes. Previous meta-analytic research has evidenced the "screen inferiority effect": Readers tend to understand texts slightly worse when reading on-screen than when reading the same text in print. Most primary studies from those meta-analyses used computers as on-screen reading devices. Accordingly, the extent to which handheld devices, which provide a reading experience closer to books than computers, are affected by the screen inferiority effect remains an open question. To address this issue, we reviewed relevant literature regarding potential moderating factors for the screen inferiority effect through the lenses of the reading for understanding framework. We then performed two meta-analyses aimed at examining the differences in reading comprehension when reading on handheld devices, as compared to print. Results from the two multilevel random-effect meta-analyses, which included primary studies that used either between-participant (k = 38, g = -0.113) or within-participant (k = 21, g = -0.103) designs, consistently showed a significant small size effect favoring print text comprehension. Moderator analyses helped to partially clarify the results, indicating in some cases a higher screen inferiority effect for undergraduate students (as compared to primary and secondary school students) and for participants who were assessed individually (as opposed to in groups). We discuss the need to continue fostering print reading in schools while developing effective ways to incorporate handheld devices for reading purposes.

BACKGROUND:Text comprehension is a major obstacle for many Primary school students with special education needs (SEN). Reading episodes bring students opportunities to be exposed to new vocabulary and knowledge, potentially boosting their development of text comprehension skills.AIMS:Our study seeks to understand how reading frequency (leisure and academic) and reading medium (print and digital) contribute to the development of text comprehension during Primary school in students with and without SEN.METHODS AND PROCEDURES:We tested 2289 Spanish students from fourth to sixth grade, from which 212 had an official decision of SEN. Students self-reported their reading frequency (as a measure of their reading habits) and completed a standardized text comprehension test. We employed multiple regression models with a robust maximum likelihood estimator to test associations between reading frequency and comprehension.OUTCOMES AND RESULTS:Students' comprehension was positively associated with their leisure print reading habits, and negatively associated with their frequency of academic digital reading. Those associations were independent of SEN status.CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS:Results highlight the importance of promoting leisure reading in print to all students, regardless of SEN status. In addition, caution is advised when encouraging Primary school children to use digital texts when the emphasis is on comprehending texts for acquiring knowledge.