Reading online for research purposes in a middle school science classroom

This dissertation investigated how students made decisions about the value and meaning of multimodal sources as they read online for research purposes. It aimed to shed light on this experience to inform pedagogical practice and add to the growing body of literature on the new literacies practices of students. Reading increasingly takes place online and adolescents are found to be engaged with devices that connect them to these contexts at astonishing rates. Understanding students’ reading practices in such contexts can equip teachers to teach in light of student understanding and prepare students for the literacies skills needed for today’s reading contexts. Through a qualitative, single case study employing think-aloud protocols and screen recordings of seven eighth-grade students in a science class, findings emerged. The findings indicated the online context qualitatively impacted the reading practices of the participating students. As a result of this study, recommendations are made for instructional design that aligns learning outcomes with instructional practices by accounting for the ways the internet can affect the reading process.

Name thesis:degree_name

Ed.D.

Level thesis:degree_level

Dissertation

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Educ Policy, Orgzn & Leadrshp

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2023

Author dc:creator

• Mills, Erin Michaela

Contributors dc:contributor

• Kalantzis, Mary
• Pak, Yoon
• Cope, Bill
• Kang, Hyun

• Multimodal Reading
• Reading Online
• Literacies Practices
• Middle School Students

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2023 Erin Mills

Language dc:language

en, eng

Handle dc:identifier

https://hdl.handle.net/2142/122034

OAI record oai:identifier

https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=etdms&identifier=oai%3Awww.ideals.illinois.edu%3A2142%2F122034