Individual Differences for Self-Regulating Task-Oriented Reading Activities

The goal of this study is to analyze the self regulation processes present in task oriented reading activities In the 1st experiment we examined the following self regulation processes in the context of answering questions about an available text (a) monitoring the comprehension of the question (b) self regulating the search process and (c) monitoring the decision to search Skilled and less skilled comprehenders from 7th and 8th grades read 2 texts and answered 16 questions while all their actions were recorded on a computer We hypothesized that skilled comprehenders would differ from less skilled comprehenders on the 1st 2 processes on the basis of their general comprehension skills but that their superiority in the 3rd process would be based on specific characteristics of the interaction between the reader and the text The results support our hypotheses In the 2nd experiment we hypothesized that monitoring the decision to search would be equivalent to judgments of learning (JOLs) Eighth graders made JOLs before answering every question and then they decided whether to search the text Our hypothesis was confirmed Our study reveals that task oriented reading places specific demands on readers related to metacognitive monitoring