1st Edition

Deep Comprehension Multi-Disciplinary Approaches to Understanding, Enhancing, and Measuring Comprehension

    304 Pages 31 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    304 Pages 31 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    This volume provides an overview of research from the learning sciences into understanding, enhancing, and measuring "deep comprehension" from a psychological, educational, and psychometric perspective. It describes the characteristics of deep comprehension, what techniques may be used to improve it, and how deep levels of comprehension may be distinguished from shallow ones. It includes research on personal-level variables; how intelligent tutors promote comprehension; and the latest developments in psychometrics. The volume will be of interest to senior undergraduate and graduate students of cognitive psychology, learning, cognition and instruction, and educational technology.

    Part 1: Understanding Deep Comprehension

    1. Prose Comprehension Beyond the Page

    Jennifer Wiley and Tricia A. Guerrero

    2. Prose Comprehension Beyond the Word Revisited

    Rolf A. Zwaan

    3. A Memory Retrieval View of Text Comprehension

    Debra L. Long and Erin M. Freed

    4. Standards of Coherence in Reading: Variations in Processing and Comprehension of Text

    Marja Oudega and Paul van den Broek

    5. What do We Think About When We Learn?

    Sidney K. D’Mello

    6. Reusing Neural Networks for Deep Comprehension

    Manuel de Vega and David Beltran

    7. What are We Reading for? A Disciplinary Literacy Perspective on Purpose

    Susan R. Goldman and MariAnne George

    Part 2: Using Technology to Increase Deep Comprehension

    8. Learning Tasks in Electronic Environments: Advances Towards Interactive eTextbooks

    Eduardo Vidal-Abarca et al.

    9. How can FACT Encourage Collaboration and Self-correction?

    Kurt VanLehn, et al.

    10. Design Principles for Virtual Humans in Educational Technology Environments

    Scotty D. Craig and Noah L. Schroeder

    11. AutoTutor: An Intelligent Tutoring System and its Authoring Tools

    Zhiqiang Cai and Xiangen Hu

    12. The Unreasonable Effectiveness of AutoTutor

    Andrew M. Olney

    13. Scaffolding Adult Learners’ Reading Strategies in the Intelligent Tutoring System

    Haiying Li and Whitney Baer

    14. Learning Scientific Inquiry from a Serious Game that Uses AutoTutor

    Keith Millis, et al.

    Part 3: Measuring Deep Comprehension

    15. Using Scenario-based Assessments to Measure Deep Learning

    O’Reilly, John Sabatini, and  Zuowei Wang

    16. Eliciting Deeper Evidence through Conversation-Based Assessments

    Blair Lehman and G. Tanner Jackson

    17. NLP: Getting Computers to Understand Discourse

    Danielle S. McNamara, et al.

    18. Deep and Shallow Natural Language Understanding for Identifying Explanation Structure

    Peter Hastings, et al.

    19. Deep Comprehension of Text Revealed by Talking and Writing While Reading

    Joseph P. Magliano, Karyn Higgs, and Keith Millis

    20. Big Data for Thick Description of Deep Learning

    David Williamson Shaffer

    Biography

    Keith Millis is Professor of Psychology at Northern Illinois University and Deputy Director of the Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Language and Literacy (CISLL). He studies comprehension and learning from text.

    Debra L. Long is Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Davis. She studies the knowledge and processes that are involved in text comprehension using behavioral, electrophysiological, and individual difference techniques.

    Joseph P. Magliano is Professor of Psychology at Northern Illinois University and Director of the Center for the Interdisciplinary Study of Language and Literacy (CISLL). He studies comprehension processes for text and film.

    Katja Wiemer is Professor of Psychology at Northern Illinois University and Co-Director of the Cognitive Science program. Her research focuses on abstract concepts, embodiment, and causal relations in scientific explanations.

    One of the hallmarks of an educated mind is the ability to think critically and analytically about what is read, seen, or heard; in effect, to look beyond the words to the message that lies within. That very ability is the essence of deep comprehension and the theme that weaves through the pages of this thoughtful and invaluable book by Millis, Long, Magliano, and Wiemer. Given the complex and often confusing world in which we find ourselves, there is no more essential topic to be explored than what it means to understand text—in its many forms—deeply. This edited volume not only seeks to address that timely topic, but also to arm educators with the knowledge required to measure depth of understanding accurately and to facilitate students’ engagement in deep learning effectively. There is no more thorough treatment of these vital topics than Deep Comprehension—a must read for anyone who values the ability to think beyond the words read, seen, or heard to the message that lies within. Professor Patricia Alexander, Ph.D., University of Maryland, College Park