Task-oriented reading of multiple documents: online comprehension processes and offline products

We explored readers’ judgments of text relevance and strategy use while they read about a controversial scientific issue in multiple conflicting documents using a think-aloud methodology and had them write a short essay after reading. Participants were university-level students. There were three main findings. First, readers discriminated between more- and less-relevant information while they read. Second, the frequency with which they used strategies differed while they read more- and less-relevant information. Specifically, while they read more-relevant information, students were more likely to build connections between that information and information in other texts. Third, their judgments of more-relevant segments as relevant and their evaluation of less-relevant information while they read were related to the quality of students’ essays after they read. We discuss how the findings may contribute to the literature on task-oriented reading of multiple documents.