Task Oriented Reading of Instructional Materials and Its Relationship to Message Scores in Online Learning Conversations

This paper examines the utility of an unobtrusive attention guidance functionality integrated into an anchored discussion system. Our proposed design is founded in social constructivism and accomplishes two objectives: (1) to promote students' task oriented reading of central domain principles from instructional materials; (2) to support students' progressive improvement of tentative ideas focusing on central domain principles from instructional materials. We perform experimental research to test our design and apply quantitative techniques to rigorously evaluate the utility of the developed attention guidance functionality. Results show that attention guidance prompted students to reflect on and monitor their cognitive processes while reading information they deemed important. Moreover, we found that students invested deliberate efforts to improve tentative ideas by focusing on information they deemed important. Finally, we discovered such efforts to be a significant predictor of task oriented reading of central domain principles from instructional materials. Theoretical and practical implications are outlined.