Students' Strategic Use of Multiple Sources During Expository Text Reading: A Longitudinal Think-Aloud Study

This study examined how students' strategic processing and their linking of multiple sources work together during the reading of expository texts. Seven Norwegian law students read self-selected texts at different points in time. Think-aloud protocols were generated during reading and analyzed to identify types of text-processing strategies as well as the sources that the students referred to when they used those strategies. The students primarily used memorization and organization strategies to process information located in the text they were currently reading, whereas they more often used monitoring and, especially, elaboration to focus on sources external to the current text. In addition, the students focused their strategic processing less on text-internal and more on text-external sources over time. A possible explanation for this shift toward text-external processing focus may be that students changed their goals and perception of the reading task as the academic year progressed. Students who tended to focus their organization and elaboration activities most on text-external sources obtained the highest grades at the year-end examination. Three case studies were used to elaborate on the group results and illustrate the individualistic nature of development in strategic use of multiple sources.