The effectiveness of roles, scripts and prompts in promoting reading comprehension during computer-supported collaborative learning.

• Main Author: Morris, Rachel Andrea
• Other Authors: Hadwin, Allyson
• Language: English; en
• Published: 2009
• Subjects: reading; comprehension; collaboration; discussions; UVic Subject Index::Humanities and Social Sciences::Education::Reading
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/1828/1383

The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of structured computer-supported collaboration in helping students with a vast array of comprehension skills, grapple with challenging text-based learning materials. Two collaborative discussion conditions were compared: (a) regular peer text chat and (b) structured peer text chat in which 62, grade 10 students were assigned to one of two conditions. In the structured condition, students were assigned to roles, scripts and prompts based on a modified reciprocal teaching model to guide their discussion on a difficult text on crystal methamphetamine. Reading comprehension competence was measured using the Test of Reading Comprehension (TORC-3) and a pre-post Task Specific Reading Comprehension (TSRC) test was used to measure comprehension of the target text for subjects in both conditions. Although students in the structured chat condition did not achieve greater gains in reading comprehension, those who scored lower on the TORC-3 had greater gains than students who scored higher on the TORC-3.