The Influence of Critical Reading Orientation on External Strategy Use during Expository Text Reading

Abstract

This study examined the influence of critical reading orientation on use of external strategies such as note‐taking and underlining while reading an expository text. In two experiments, undergraduate students were asked either to review an article on a linguistic policy (critical reading) or to summarise it (less‐critical reading). Experiment 1 indicated that, when permitted to do so, the majority of students used note‐taking and/or underlining strategies for critical reading as well as for less‐critical reading. In Experiment 2, an analysis of think‐aloud protocols, notes, and underlines revealed that critical readers produced more critical notes/underlines and fewer summary notes than did less‐critical readers. Also, critical readers substantially increased their production of critical notes/underlines over the course of reading and decreased highlightings, whereas less‐critical readers increased summary notes and decreased highlightings.