Helge I Stromso | University of Oslo (original) (raw)
Papers by Helge I Stromso
Education and Information Technologies
Research has shown that students differ in their abilities to evaluate the credibility of online ... more Research has shown that students differ in their abilities to evaluate the credibility of online texts, and, in general, many perform poorly on online evaluation tasks. This study extended current knowledge by examining students’ abilities to justify the credibility of online texts from different perspectives, thus providing a more nuanced understanding of students’ credibility evaluation ability. We examined how upper secondary school students (N = 73; aged 16 to 17) evaluated author expertise, author intention, the publication venue, and the quality of evidence when reading four texts about the effects of sugar consumption in a web-based environment. Additionally, we examined how students’ prior topic knowledge, Internet-specific justification beliefs, and time on task were associated with their credibility justifications. Students evaluated author expertise, author intention, the venue, and the quality of evidence for each text on a six-point scale and provided written justificat...
Reading Research Quarterly, 2019
This quasi-experimental study examined the effects of an intervention designed to teach upper-sec... more This quasi-experimental study examined the effects of an intervention designed to teach upper-secondary school students to take source information, for example about author expertise, into consideration when selecting, processing, and using textual resources to complete particular multiple document literacy tasks. The intervention centered on a contrasting cases approach framed by authentic curriculum-based classroom activities and was implemented over six weeks by teachers who had participated in professional development seminars. The findings demonstrated that students who had participated in the sourcing intervention placed more value on source information when selecting texts, invested more time and effort in processing the texts they selected, and more frequently attributed textual ideas to their respective sources compared to students who instead had participated in typical classroom activities. These effects were observed on far transfer tasks where students worked with multiple documents on different topics in different situational contexts for different purposes and were sustained over a period of five and a half weeks. The discussion highlights the uniqueness of the current intervention work and centers on the aspects of the sourcing intervention that likely promoted these broad, sustainable, and transferable sourcing skills in students. Attention is also directed to several possible lines of future research in this area.
Uniped, 2016
were seduced into the illusion of having learned. In the present paper, I will review central stu... more were seduced into the illusion of having learned. In the present paper, I will review central studies on the «Dr. Fox effect» and discuss the possible impact of teachers' enthusiasm on students' learning.
Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, 2017
Socioscientific issues receive considerable public attention and there are concerns that people i... more Socioscientific issues receive considerable public attention and there are concerns that people in general are not able or willing to deal with information at odds with what they believe to be true. In this study, we focused on students’ beliefs about two controversial issues: whether consumption of the artificial sweetener aspartame and use of cell phones, respectively, represent any serious health risks. Our aim was to investigate whether students’ trust in the information was related to prior beliefs, the nature of the message, and students’ critical reading strategies. Results showed interactions between prior beliefs about the issues and text condition (risk vs. no risk) on trust in conclusions that indicated a confirmation bias assumption. Additionally, students trusted conclusions ascertaining that there were risks more than conclusions ascertaining that there were no risks. Finally, students’ self-reported use of critical reading strategies implied less trust in both types o...
Acta Didactica Norge, 2013
I denne artikkelen ser vi på hvilken type informasjon elever i 7. klasse vektlegger for å konstru... more I denne artikkelen ser vi på hvilken type informasjon elever i 7. klasse vektlegger for å konstruere en sammenhengende oppsummering av fire til dels motstridende tekster. Elever møter ofte flere tekster om samme tema – multiple tekster – og vi trenger økt kunnskap om hvordan de leser slike tekster. Elevene leste fire ulike tekster om en sykkelulykke. Tekstene presenterte informasjon som var delvis sammenfallende på tvers av alle tekstene, og delvis motstridende informasjon som innebar at enkelte tekster ga ulike beskrivelser av hendelsesforløpet. Vi testet elevenes ordavkodingsferdigheter, fikk dem til å fylle ut et spørreskjema om lesevaner og vi innhentet elevenes resultater på Nasjonal leseprøve. Etter lesing ba vi elevene gi en oppsummering av sykkelulykken. Elevene gjenga relativt mer sammenfallende informasjon enn motstridende informasjon. Gode resultater på Nasjonal leseprøve ser ut til å ha en sammenheng med elevenes ferdigheter i å konstruere en sammenhengende forståelse av...
Nordic Psychology, 2016
In this research, we investigated relationships between undergraduate students' prior topic belie... more In this research, we investigated relationships between undergraduate students' prior topic beliefs and their recall of the main conclusions from texts on controversial socio-scientific issues, to what extent students trusted the recalled conclusions, and how they justified their trust in those conclusions. While belief-biased recall of text conclusions was not observed in this study, students were found to trust the recalled conclusions more when they were consistent than when they were inconsistent with students' prior beliefs about the issues. Moreover, students primarily justified their trust in the recalled conclusions by referring to their personal opinions on the issues. Finally, students who correctly recalled text conclusions even when those conclusions were at odds with their prior beliefs about the issues outperformed students who incorrectly recalled conclusions that were consistent with their prior beliefs on measures of cognitive reflection and reported use of critical reading strategies. Theoretical as well as educational implications of these findings are discussed.
Encyclopedia of the Sciences of Learning, 2012
European Journal of Psychology of Education, 2012
ABSTRACT Building on the multidimensional framework of epistemic cognition proposed by Greene et ... more ABSTRACT Building on the multidimensional framework of epistemic cognition proposed by Greene et al. (Educational Psychologist 43:142–160, 2008), this study examined beliefs about justification of knowledge claims in science among 65 Norwegian 10th graders. The first research question asked whether beliefs in personal justification, justification by authority, and justification by multiple sources differed in strength among the participants. It was found that the students most strongly believed in justification by authority, followed by justification by multiple sources and personal justification. The second research question asked whether the three types of justification beliefs differentially and uniquely predicted the comprehension of multiple conflicting documents on a science issue. In a multiple regression analysis with multiple-documents comprehension indicated by essay performance as the dependent variable, both personal justification and justification by multiple sources emerged as unique predictors when topic knowledge was controlled for. Specifically, beliefs in personal opinion as a means of justifying knowledge claims in science was negatively related to multiple-documents comprehension, whereas beliefs in justification through corroboration across multiple sources of information were positively related to multiple-documents comprehension. This study provides new evidence about relationships between epistemic beliefs and new literacy competencies needed in an information society, such as integrating across multiple conflicting sources of information; relationships that may also have practical implications.
Cognition and Instruction, 2013
This study used think-aloud methodology to explore undergraduates' spontaneous attention to a... more This study used think-aloud methodology to explore undergraduates' spontaneous attention to and use of source information while reading six documents that presented conflicting views on a controversial social scientific issue in a Google-like environment. Results showed that students explicitly and implicitly paid attention to sources of documents as well as sources cited within documents and that their attention to source information was associated with its use in evaluating, predicting, and interpreting the content of the documents. Students' sourcing activity varied across documents. The two documents that took the strongest, opposing stances on the controversy elicited the most sourcing. We also observed that, in essays they wrote on the controversy, students' spontaneous sourcing activity was related to their citation of a particularly trustworthy source. The study's theoretical implications are discussed in terms of the Documents Model framework.
Reading and Writing, 2020
We explored potential profiles of interest, attitudes, and source evaluation by performing cluste... more We explored potential profiles of interest, attitudes, and source evaluation by performing cluster analysis in a sample of Norwegian upper-secondary students. Differences among the profile groups with regard to multiple-document use were examined. The profile groups were partly consistent with the default stances described by the cognitive-affective engagement model of multiple-source use (List & Alexander, 2017), resulting in critical analytic, evaluative, and disengaged profiles. However, the model’s assumption that interest and attitude constitute one affective engagement dimension was not confirmed. There were no statistically significant differences between the profile groups in the processing of a set of multiple documents; yet there was a tendency for students who adopted a critical analytic stance to engage in a more thorough text selection process. Those students also included more information units from the selected texts in their written products and integrated informatio...
Norsk Pedagogisk Tidsskrift, Jan 15, 2014
Http Dx Doi Org 10 1080 02702711 2013 864362, Oct 6, 2014
ABSTRACT Students read six documents that varied in terms of their perspectives on a scientific i... more ABSTRACT Students read six documents that varied in terms of their perspectives on a scientific issue and the trustworthiness of the source features. After reading, students wrote essays, rank-ordered the documents according to perceived trustworthiness, and provided reasons for their rank-order decisions. Students put the most trust in a textbook and a public information text, primarily giving content reasons for their trustworthiness judgments. The kind of source characteristics that students drew upon when deciding what to trust and what not to trust varied across documents. Finally, their source evaluation was related to the source citations included in their essays.
Metacognition and Learning, Apr 8, 2011
This study explored the dimensionality of multiple-text comprehension strategies in a sample of 2... more This study explored the dimensionality of multiple-text comprehension strategies in a sample of 216 Norwegian education undergraduates who read seven separate texts on a science topic and immediately afterwards responded to a self-report inventory focusing on strategic multiple-text processing in that specific task context. Two dimensions were identified through factor analysis: one concerning the accumulation of pieces of information from the different texts and one concerning cross-text elaboration. In a subsample of 71 students who were also administered measures of intratextual and intertextual comprehension after responding to the strategy inventory, hierarchical multiple regression analysis indicated that self-reported accumulation of information and cross-text elaboration explained variance in intertextual comprehension even after variance associated with prior knowledge had been removed.
Reading and Writing an Interdisciplinary Journal, Mar 1, 2013
Sixty-five Norwegian 10th graders used the software Read&Answer 2.0 to read five different texts ... more Sixty-five Norwegian 10th graders used the software Read&Answer 2.0 to read five different texts presenting conflicting views on the controversial scientific issue of sun exposure and health. Participants were administered a multiple-choice topic-knowledge measure before and after reading, a word recognition task, and a reading motivation inventory that included two dimensions: Science reading self-efficacy, focusing on readers' beliefs about their capabilities to comprehend what they read in science, and science reading task value, focusing on readers' beliefs about how important, useful, and interesting it is to comprehend science texts. In addition, strategic reading pattern was assessed in terms of the degree of non-linear reading behavior. Multiple regression analysis showed that word recognition skills strongly predicted learning from the texts, as assessed by participants' increase in topic knowledge. However, when multiple-text comprehension indicated by performance on open-ended short-essay questions was the dependent variable, not only word recognition but also strategic reading pattern and science reading self-efficacy emerged as unique predictors when topic knowledge was controlled for. Science reading task value was not related to performance. This study provides new evidence that new literacy competencies needed in a knowledge society, such as synthesizing or integrating across multiple conflicting sources of information, still largely involve word-level, strategic, and motivational processes that may profitably be targeted through systematic instruction.
Through the last decades an increasing number of studies have demonstrated that students’ persona... more Through the last decades an increasing number of studies have demonstrated that students’ personal epistemology are related to important aspects of learning in higher education. Still, little is known about how faculty can scaffold the development of more adaptive personal epistemology in their students. In the present chapter, we address this issue with a focus on belief systems among university teachers. Specifically, we will discuss the nature of those belief systems, whether teachers’ beliefs about teaching necessarily are related to their personal epistemology, and how belief systems about teaching and about knowledge may be related to teaching practice. Finally, we will sum up this discussion with six tentative recommendations for the design of faculty training programs.
Our first aim was to investigate how 7th graders process multiple, partly contradictory texts. Ou... more Our first aim was to investigate how 7th graders process multiple, partly contradictory texts. Our second aim was to investigate possible relationships between students’ strategy use and their: a) noting and processing of conflicting information and b) noting and processing of central information. Our results showed that the participating 7th graders frequently used elaboration while processing the texts, mainly by linking what they read to prior knowledge. More, superficial processing was negatively related to students’ processing of intertextual conflicts and awareness of disagreements. Finally, deeper-level processing in the form of relevant elaborations and justified evaluations were positively related to students’ attention to central information and their awareness of contradictory information, respectively. A follow-up contrastive case study supported these conclusions. Much further work will be needed to fully understand how young students work with multiple, partly contradi...
International Encyclopedia of Education, 2010
ABSTRACT
Journal of Research in Reading, 2015
ABSTRACT This study compared the effects of two brief prereading instructional practices – hands-... more ABSTRACT This study compared the effects of two brief prereading instructional practices – hands-on activities and prior knowledge activation – on sixth-graders' intrinsic motivation for reading a text and reading comprehension. Both hands-on activities and prior knowledge activation substantially improved reading comprehension relative to a control condition where students just read to answer questions and take a test about the text content. These effects did not depend on preexisting individual differences in basic reading skill, reading motivation or topic knowledge. Hands-on activities and prior knowledge activation did not differentially affect reading comprehension, however, nor did either of them have any effect on intrinsic motivation to read the text. If used regularly in classrooms, brief prereading practices in the form of hands-on activities or prior knowledge activation may result in knowledge gains that accumulate to build a solid conceptual basis for further, self-regulated learning from text.
Education and Information Technologies
Research has shown that students differ in their abilities to evaluate the credibility of online ... more Research has shown that students differ in their abilities to evaluate the credibility of online texts, and, in general, many perform poorly on online evaluation tasks. This study extended current knowledge by examining students’ abilities to justify the credibility of online texts from different perspectives, thus providing a more nuanced understanding of students’ credibility evaluation ability. We examined how upper secondary school students (N = 73; aged 16 to 17) evaluated author expertise, author intention, the publication venue, and the quality of evidence when reading four texts about the effects of sugar consumption in a web-based environment. Additionally, we examined how students’ prior topic knowledge, Internet-specific justification beliefs, and time on task were associated with their credibility justifications. Students evaluated author expertise, author intention, the venue, and the quality of evidence for each text on a six-point scale and provided written justificat...
Reading Research Quarterly, 2019
This quasi-experimental study examined the effects of an intervention designed to teach upper-sec... more This quasi-experimental study examined the effects of an intervention designed to teach upper-secondary school students to take source information, for example about author expertise, into consideration when selecting, processing, and using textual resources to complete particular multiple document literacy tasks. The intervention centered on a contrasting cases approach framed by authentic curriculum-based classroom activities and was implemented over six weeks by teachers who had participated in professional development seminars. The findings demonstrated that students who had participated in the sourcing intervention placed more value on source information when selecting texts, invested more time and effort in processing the texts they selected, and more frequently attributed textual ideas to their respective sources compared to students who instead had participated in typical classroom activities. These effects were observed on far transfer tasks where students worked with multiple documents on different topics in different situational contexts for different purposes and were sustained over a period of five and a half weeks. The discussion highlights the uniqueness of the current intervention work and centers on the aspects of the sourcing intervention that likely promoted these broad, sustainable, and transferable sourcing skills in students. Attention is also directed to several possible lines of future research in this area.
Uniped, 2016
were seduced into the illusion of having learned. In the present paper, I will review central stu... more were seduced into the illusion of having learned. In the present paper, I will review central studies on the «Dr. Fox effect» and discuss the possible impact of teachers' enthusiasm on students' learning.
Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society, 2017
Socioscientific issues receive considerable public attention and there are concerns that people i... more Socioscientific issues receive considerable public attention and there are concerns that people in general are not able or willing to deal with information at odds with what they believe to be true. In this study, we focused on students’ beliefs about two controversial issues: whether consumption of the artificial sweetener aspartame and use of cell phones, respectively, represent any serious health risks. Our aim was to investigate whether students’ trust in the information was related to prior beliefs, the nature of the message, and students’ critical reading strategies. Results showed interactions between prior beliefs about the issues and text condition (risk vs. no risk) on trust in conclusions that indicated a confirmation bias assumption. Additionally, students trusted conclusions ascertaining that there were risks more than conclusions ascertaining that there were no risks. Finally, students’ self-reported use of critical reading strategies implied less trust in both types o...
Acta Didactica Norge, 2013
I denne artikkelen ser vi på hvilken type informasjon elever i 7. klasse vektlegger for å konstru... more I denne artikkelen ser vi på hvilken type informasjon elever i 7. klasse vektlegger for å konstruere en sammenhengende oppsummering av fire til dels motstridende tekster. Elever møter ofte flere tekster om samme tema – multiple tekster – og vi trenger økt kunnskap om hvordan de leser slike tekster. Elevene leste fire ulike tekster om en sykkelulykke. Tekstene presenterte informasjon som var delvis sammenfallende på tvers av alle tekstene, og delvis motstridende informasjon som innebar at enkelte tekster ga ulike beskrivelser av hendelsesforløpet. Vi testet elevenes ordavkodingsferdigheter, fikk dem til å fylle ut et spørreskjema om lesevaner og vi innhentet elevenes resultater på Nasjonal leseprøve. Etter lesing ba vi elevene gi en oppsummering av sykkelulykken. Elevene gjenga relativt mer sammenfallende informasjon enn motstridende informasjon. Gode resultater på Nasjonal leseprøve ser ut til å ha en sammenheng med elevenes ferdigheter i å konstruere en sammenhengende forståelse av...
Nordic Psychology, 2016
In this research, we investigated relationships between undergraduate students' prior topic belie... more In this research, we investigated relationships between undergraduate students' prior topic beliefs and their recall of the main conclusions from texts on controversial socio-scientific issues, to what extent students trusted the recalled conclusions, and how they justified their trust in those conclusions. While belief-biased recall of text conclusions was not observed in this study, students were found to trust the recalled conclusions more when they were consistent than when they were inconsistent with students' prior beliefs about the issues. Moreover, students primarily justified their trust in the recalled conclusions by referring to their personal opinions on the issues. Finally, students who correctly recalled text conclusions even when those conclusions were at odds with their prior beliefs about the issues outperformed students who incorrectly recalled conclusions that were consistent with their prior beliefs on measures of cognitive reflection and reported use of critical reading strategies. Theoretical as well as educational implications of these findings are discussed.
Encyclopedia of the Sciences of Learning, 2012
European Journal of Psychology of Education, 2012
ABSTRACT Building on the multidimensional framework of epistemic cognition proposed by Greene et ... more ABSTRACT Building on the multidimensional framework of epistemic cognition proposed by Greene et al. (Educational Psychologist 43:142–160, 2008), this study examined beliefs about justification of knowledge claims in science among 65 Norwegian 10th graders. The first research question asked whether beliefs in personal justification, justification by authority, and justification by multiple sources differed in strength among the participants. It was found that the students most strongly believed in justification by authority, followed by justification by multiple sources and personal justification. The second research question asked whether the three types of justification beliefs differentially and uniquely predicted the comprehension of multiple conflicting documents on a science issue. In a multiple regression analysis with multiple-documents comprehension indicated by essay performance as the dependent variable, both personal justification and justification by multiple sources emerged as unique predictors when topic knowledge was controlled for. Specifically, beliefs in personal opinion as a means of justifying knowledge claims in science was negatively related to multiple-documents comprehension, whereas beliefs in justification through corroboration across multiple sources of information were positively related to multiple-documents comprehension. This study provides new evidence about relationships between epistemic beliefs and new literacy competencies needed in an information society, such as integrating across multiple conflicting sources of information; relationships that may also have practical implications.
Cognition and Instruction, 2013
This study used think-aloud methodology to explore undergraduates' spontaneous attention to a... more This study used think-aloud methodology to explore undergraduates' spontaneous attention to and use of source information while reading six documents that presented conflicting views on a controversial social scientific issue in a Google-like environment. Results showed that students explicitly and implicitly paid attention to sources of documents as well as sources cited within documents and that their attention to source information was associated with its use in evaluating, predicting, and interpreting the content of the documents. Students' sourcing activity varied across documents. The two documents that took the strongest, opposing stances on the controversy elicited the most sourcing. We also observed that, in essays they wrote on the controversy, students' spontaneous sourcing activity was related to their citation of a particularly trustworthy source. The study's theoretical implications are discussed in terms of the Documents Model framework.
Reading and Writing, 2020
We explored potential profiles of interest, attitudes, and source evaluation by performing cluste... more We explored potential profiles of interest, attitudes, and source evaluation by performing cluster analysis in a sample of Norwegian upper-secondary students. Differences among the profile groups with regard to multiple-document use were examined. The profile groups were partly consistent with the default stances described by the cognitive-affective engagement model of multiple-source use (List & Alexander, 2017), resulting in critical analytic, evaluative, and disengaged profiles. However, the model’s assumption that interest and attitude constitute one affective engagement dimension was not confirmed. There were no statistically significant differences between the profile groups in the processing of a set of multiple documents; yet there was a tendency for students who adopted a critical analytic stance to engage in a more thorough text selection process. Those students also included more information units from the selected texts in their written products and integrated informatio...
Norsk Pedagogisk Tidsskrift, Jan 15, 2014
Http Dx Doi Org 10 1080 02702711 2013 864362, Oct 6, 2014
ABSTRACT Students read six documents that varied in terms of their perspectives on a scientific i... more ABSTRACT Students read six documents that varied in terms of their perspectives on a scientific issue and the trustworthiness of the source features. After reading, students wrote essays, rank-ordered the documents according to perceived trustworthiness, and provided reasons for their rank-order decisions. Students put the most trust in a textbook and a public information text, primarily giving content reasons for their trustworthiness judgments. The kind of source characteristics that students drew upon when deciding what to trust and what not to trust varied across documents. Finally, their source evaluation was related to the source citations included in their essays.
Metacognition and Learning, Apr 8, 2011
This study explored the dimensionality of multiple-text comprehension strategies in a sample of 2... more This study explored the dimensionality of multiple-text comprehension strategies in a sample of 216 Norwegian education undergraduates who read seven separate texts on a science topic and immediately afterwards responded to a self-report inventory focusing on strategic multiple-text processing in that specific task context. Two dimensions were identified through factor analysis: one concerning the accumulation of pieces of information from the different texts and one concerning cross-text elaboration. In a subsample of 71 students who were also administered measures of intratextual and intertextual comprehension after responding to the strategy inventory, hierarchical multiple regression analysis indicated that self-reported accumulation of information and cross-text elaboration explained variance in intertextual comprehension even after variance associated with prior knowledge had been removed.
Reading and Writing an Interdisciplinary Journal, Mar 1, 2013
Sixty-five Norwegian 10th graders used the software Read&Answer 2.0 to read five different texts ... more Sixty-five Norwegian 10th graders used the software Read&Answer 2.0 to read five different texts presenting conflicting views on the controversial scientific issue of sun exposure and health. Participants were administered a multiple-choice topic-knowledge measure before and after reading, a word recognition task, and a reading motivation inventory that included two dimensions: Science reading self-efficacy, focusing on readers' beliefs about their capabilities to comprehend what they read in science, and science reading task value, focusing on readers' beliefs about how important, useful, and interesting it is to comprehend science texts. In addition, strategic reading pattern was assessed in terms of the degree of non-linear reading behavior. Multiple regression analysis showed that word recognition skills strongly predicted learning from the texts, as assessed by participants' increase in topic knowledge. However, when multiple-text comprehension indicated by performance on open-ended short-essay questions was the dependent variable, not only word recognition but also strategic reading pattern and science reading self-efficacy emerged as unique predictors when topic knowledge was controlled for. Science reading task value was not related to performance. This study provides new evidence that new literacy competencies needed in a knowledge society, such as synthesizing or integrating across multiple conflicting sources of information, still largely involve word-level, strategic, and motivational processes that may profitably be targeted through systematic instruction.
Through the last decades an increasing number of studies have demonstrated that students’ persona... more Through the last decades an increasing number of studies have demonstrated that students’ personal epistemology are related to important aspects of learning in higher education. Still, little is known about how faculty can scaffold the development of more adaptive personal epistemology in their students. In the present chapter, we address this issue with a focus on belief systems among university teachers. Specifically, we will discuss the nature of those belief systems, whether teachers’ beliefs about teaching necessarily are related to their personal epistemology, and how belief systems about teaching and about knowledge may be related to teaching practice. Finally, we will sum up this discussion with six tentative recommendations for the design of faculty training programs.
Our first aim was to investigate how 7th graders process multiple, partly contradictory texts. Ou... more Our first aim was to investigate how 7th graders process multiple, partly contradictory texts. Our second aim was to investigate possible relationships between students’ strategy use and their: a) noting and processing of conflicting information and b) noting and processing of central information. Our results showed that the participating 7th graders frequently used elaboration while processing the texts, mainly by linking what they read to prior knowledge. More, superficial processing was negatively related to students’ processing of intertextual conflicts and awareness of disagreements. Finally, deeper-level processing in the form of relevant elaborations and justified evaluations were positively related to students’ attention to central information and their awareness of contradictory information, respectively. A follow-up contrastive case study supported these conclusions. Much further work will be needed to fully understand how young students work with multiple, partly contradi...
International Encyclopedia of Education, 2010
ABSTRACT
Journal of Research in Reading, 2015
ABSTRACT This study compared the effects of two brief prereading instructional practices – hands-... more ABSTRACT This study compared the effects of two brief prereading instructional practices – hands-on activities and prior knowledge activation – on sixth-graders' intrinsic motivation for reading a text and reading comprehension. Both hands-on activities and prior knowledge activation substantially improved reading comprehension relative to a control condition where students just read to answer questions and take a test about the text content. These effects did not depend on preexisting individual differences in basic reading skill, reading motivation or topic knowledge. Hands-on activities and prior knowledge activation did not differentially affect reading comprehension, however, nor did either of them have any effect on intrinsic motivation to read the text. If used regularly in classrooms, brief prereading practices in the form of hands-on activities or prior knowledge activation may result in knowledge gains that accumulate to build a solid conceptual basis for further, self-regulated learning from text.