Spooren, W., Mulder, M., & Hoeken, H. (1998). The role of interest and text structure in professional reading. Journal of Research in Reading, 21(2), 109-120.

Spooren, W.; Mulder, M.; Hoeken, H.

1998

Spooren, W., Mulder, M., & Hoeken, H. (1998). The role of interest and text structure in professional reading. Journal of Research in Reading, 21(2), 109-120.

studie 2

Investigated whether there is evidence for S. Hidi & W. Baird's (1986) suggestion that the effects of text structure on reading are artefacts. They argue that professional readers (e.g., students) mainly use interest instead of structure as their guide for attention and learning. In 3 related experiments using Dutch instructional texts both interest and text structure were manipulated as within-item factors, and on-line as well as off-line methods were used to measure effects on the reading process and product. In each experiment, reading time on the target sentence as well as its recognition were measured. In the second experiment, secondary task reaction times were employed to investigate whether interest or structure influenced the intensity of the reading process apart from its length. Results do not support Hidi & Baird's hypothesis. Instead, findings suggest that students learn better from texts that are well structured, regardless of the interest of the text or its topic.

In the second experiment the interest manipulation was strengthened, to the extent that wording of the target sentence was made more or less interesting. This again led to an effect of text structure on reading times. Problem-solution versions were read faster than List versions. Secondary reaction times were measured as an alternative to reading times, to find out whether effects of interest show up in intensity rather than in duration of attention. Subjects were slower in the case of interesting text versions, suggesting that they were processing the information more intensely, but this did not lead to better recognition.

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