Writing Summaries to Learn in Compulsory and Post-compulsory Secondary Education

The aim of this article is to analyse the procedures and the metacognitive and cognitive operations that Secondary and Higher Education students carried out as they performed a summary in order to learn. We also analysed the characteristics of the written products and identified the relations between the different variables. The research employed a multiple-case study methodology, with 24 students belonging to the same school (12 secondary education students, 12 higher education students). Data collection about the process of writing the summary consisted of asking the students to think aloud as they read and wrote to access their comprehension and composition processes. We examined the reading and writing procedures employed during the elaboration of the summary (re-reading, taking notes, writing a draft). The analysis of the thinking-aloud protocols allowed us to identify the metacognitive and cognitive operations. The summaries were also categorised. The results show significant differences between the procedures and the cognitive and metacognitive operations carried out by the students from the different educational levels. There are neither significant differences between levels related to the quality of the summaries, nor between the quality and the procedures and operations employed.