Comprehension across disciplines: A practical framework for reading research

Abstract

The increase in screen-based publishing over the past 30 years has sparked an evolution of reading. Reading's natural scope has ignited interest across paradigms. The resulting scholarship offers rich opportunity, but also presents a concerning challenge – approaches differ across disciplines, producing results that can be difficult to interpret and apply between fields.

This article introduces both a framework for use by reading researchers across disciplines and an original interpretation of Schramm's communication model as it applies to reading. Drawing on theory and practice from communication, literacy, psychology, neuroscience and education, this article proposes a practical approach with the flexibility to accommodate a broad spectrum of research interests and goals. Using Schramm's communication model as its guiding logic, this framework unifies and extends Mangen and van der Weel's integrative framework for reading research (2016) to produce a further iteration of the framework that can be engaged at all stages of the research process, encouraging replicable and – most importantly – usable research findings for all interested stakeholders. This transdisciplinary approach aims to overcome academic silos and support more compatible, transferable research outcomes for both qualitative and quantitative projects.