SPECIFIC AIMS:

The problem addressed by this project regards high-school students understanding of and ability to learn from difficult science texts.

Aim 1:

The first aim of this study is to examine high school student's and teacher's knowledge about and use of metacognitive reading strategies .
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Several empirical studies in reading have indicated that teacher's  levels of knowledge and use of strategic teaching options in reading and language are far below desirable levels.This research will help ascertain how much teachers know about reading strategies and reading training and how frequently  they use such strategies in their classrooms.

Aim 2:

The second and principal goal of this study will be to compare three reading strategy training programs, Self-Explanation,Previewing and INSERT and to thereby identify more effective methods for improving student's  comprehension skills.

Aim 3:

A third goal of this study will be to evaluate how a particular method of teaching metacognition is affected by certain individual student characteristics such as prior knowledge,reading skill,or overall student metacognitive awareness.

Aim 4:

An important goal of this research program is to develop computer software that administers reading strategy training to students and subsequently compare the effectiveness of the computerized training program to the group training programs.
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Such a training program will involve video and text presentation of the lecture components ,followed by interactive components in which student types responses into the computer ,and the computer program evaluates the responses and provides fedback .The computer will evaluate individual's responses using recent technology provided by Latent Semantic Analysis.