Locating Information in Documents: Examination of a Cognitive Model

READING DOCUMENTS to locate specific information is a challenge to young adults as well as children. According to the 1986 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), about 50% of high school graduates fail tasks that require matching three elements in a question with three elements in a corresponding document, such as a plane schedule. A task analysis of such items shows that performance depends heavily on analytical reasoning. A cognitive model proposed to account for performance includes (1) formation of a goal, (2) selection of an informational category, (3) extraction of the information, (4) integration of the information, and (5) recycling until the goal is met. To study this cognitive model, the author constructed computer presentations of two such tasks. Interactions of the reader with the computer-based documents were automatically recorded by the computer, to form measures of the reader's efficiency on components 2-5. In Study 1 with 26 college students, scores on components 2-5 accounted for 68 percent of the variance in performance. Efficiency on components 2, 3, and 4 improved significantly when students answered three questions in succession on the same document. In Study 2 with 24 college students, the author measured transfer of ability to perform the three-feature-match task between two documents drawn from the NAEP assessment. Analyses showed overall performance was facilitated; increased efficiency at category selection (2) and integration of information (4) appeared to mediate the transfer. Locating information in documents thus appears to warrant a unique cognitive process model that is more similar to analytical reasoning than to language processing or visual search.