Promoting different reading comprehension levels through online annotations

Previous studies have evaluated reading comprehension as the general understanding of reading texts. However, this broad and generic assessment of reading comprehension overlooks the specific aspects and processes that students need to develop. This study adopted Kintsch's Construction–Integration model to tap into reading comprehension at different levels and investigated how English as a foreign language (EFL) students benefit from online annotations to scaffold reading comprehension. Fifty EFL students participated in this study and the data collected included (1) the pre- and post-test assessments in reading comprehension levels, (2) the students’ online annotations on reading texts, and (3) the discussion transcripts from an online discussion forum. The results from the first two data sources (1 and 2) were the data-sets used to investigate the influence of the annotation types on reading comprehension levels. The third data source was the data-set used to probe into the process of how students benef...