How do students integrate multiple texts? An investigation of top-down processing.

This study describes an in-depth investigation of students' integration or connection formation across multiple texts. Students were asked to complete two multiple text tasks, differing in the number of texts that they asked students to connect and the variety of cross-textual connections able to be formed. For each task, students were asked to indicate (e.g., highlight) and explain each connection formed. Students' connection formation was analyzed in a variety of ways (e.g., number of texts connected, types of connections identified). Across two tasks, students were found (a) to form more evidentiary (i.e., linking specific information supporting main ideas) than thematic (i.e., linking main ideas across texts) connections, (b) to identify more similarities than differences, and (c) to form comparatively low-level, rather than high-level connections, with levels of connection formation distinguished according to the degree of specificity, abstraction, and elaboration that these reflected. Implications for further research and instruction are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]