Reading for Breadth, Reading for Depth: Understanding the Relationship Between Reading and Complex Thinking Using Epistemic Network Analysis

Abstract

This paper examines whether and to what extent long and short readers make different contributions to collaborative design discussions in a CSCL environment--that is, we investigate whether a simple measure of reading behavior based on clickstream data is a good proxy for engagement with readings. Our approach to addressing this question is multimodal, involving two sources of data: (a) a record of students' online conversations, and (b) the frequency and duration with which documents were open on each student's screen. This study suggests that in this specific case, relatively thin data about reading frequency and mean reading duration can be used to make inferences about students' reading behavior in a CSCL context where it is impossible to observe directly. It also shows the power of a multimodal approach to the data--here, we are using one mode of data (discussion) to get a better understanding of another mode (clickstream).