Using college readers' eye movements to discuss textbook reading strategies

Abstract

In order to better understand whether and how college students use certain textbook reading strategies, this project employed several important methods in concert, including a textbook reading strategy inventory that focused on frequency of strategy use, eye-movement recordings of participants reading college textbook excerpts, and think-aloud sessions in which participants viewed their own eye-movement recordings and used them as a stimulus to engage in a structured retrospective think-aloud about their own reading approach and strategies. Salient findings include participants' emerging articulations about the observable reading strategies they identified themselves implementing, discrepancies in their assumptions about their reading strategies and what they actually employed, and the sometimes surprising (to the participant) strategies they used to navigate these textbook excerpts.