Scaffolding university students' epistemic cognition during multimodal multiple-document reading: The effects of the epistemic prompting and the automated reflection report

• Published in: The Internet and higher education 2021-04, Vol.49, p.100777, Article 100777
• Main Author: Lee, Yuan-Hsuan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Epistemic metacognitive skills; Epistemic prompts; Epistemic reflection report; Justification for knowing; Multimodal multiple-document reading
• ISSN: 1096-7516; 1873-5525
• DOI: 10.1016/j.iheduc.2020.100777

This study examined how the epistemic prompts designed to activate learners' epistemic cognition in sourcing affect their multimodal multiple-document reading (MMDR), considering learners' justification for knowing behaviors, prior knowledge, and gender. Participants were 48 university students, 28 females (58.3%), and 20 males (42.7%). Students were randomly assigned to an experimental group with epistemic-prompts that automatically generate a reflection report in addition to a note-taking function or a control group with a note-taking function only. Results showed that students relied primarily on YouTube videos for their MMDR with higher credibility ratings for the YouTube video than written texts. Besides, epistemic prompting, along with the automatically generated reflection report, enhanced students' scores on constructed-response items for the experimental group and helped them create a coherent mental representation of information from diverse multimodal sources beyond the effect of personal justification and multiple justifications. Implications of the study results are made to enhance students' epistemic cognition during their MMDR. •University students' Multimodal Multiple-Document Reading (MMDR) was examined.•Students rely on YouTube videos for their MMDR with higher ratings of credibility than written texts.•Epistemic prompts plus the automatically generated MMDR report benefit students' performance.•Personal justification negatively predicts students' MMDR performance.•The treatment mitigates the effect of personal justification via coherent mental representation.