[Readers' beliefs about text comprehension affect the quality of their summaries of a scientific article]. 2013

Yuri Wada, and Kazuhiro Ueda
Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, University of Tokyo, Komaba, Meguro-ku, Tokyo 153-8902, Japan. ywada@cs.c.u-tokyo.ac.jp

Readers' beliefs about text comprehension affect how they read texts. A previous study showed two types of readers' beliefs; one is a "transmission belief' which emphasizes the importance of understanding an author's intended meaning, while the other is a "transaction belief' which emphasizes the importance of reader-generated meaning. We expect that these beliefs also affect summarization, where readers need to effectively elicit important information from the text and reconstruct it. The present study examined how readers' beliefs were related to the quality of summaries they made for a scientific article. We used the followings as indicators of the quality of the summaries: how information from a scientific article was elicited and reconstructed, and to what extent the summaries were comprehensible. The results suggest that the stronger the transmission belief of a reader was, the less effectively the reader elicited and reconstructed information and the less comprehensible the summary was. Although it cannot reveal the relationships between the transaction belief and the quality of summaries, the present study suggests that readers' beliefs about text comprehension affect summarization.

UI MeSH Term Description Entries
D008297 Male Males
D003469 Culture A collective expression for all behavior patterns acquired and socially transmitted through symbols. Culture includes customs, traditions, and language. Cultural Relativism,Customs,Beliefs,Cultural Background,Background, Cultural,Backgrounds, Cultural,Belief,Cultural Backgrounds,Cultural Relativisms,Cultures,Relativism, Cultural,Relativisms, Cultural
D004212 Academic Dissertations as Topic Works about substantial papers written by candidates for an academic degree under the individual direction of a professor or papers written by undergraduates desirous of achieving honors or distinction. Dissertations, Academic as Topic,Theses as Topic,Dissertation, Academic as Topic,Theses as Topics
D005260 Female Females
D006801 Humans Members of the species Homo sapiens. Homo sapiens,Man (Taxonomy),Human,Man, Modern,Modern Man
D055815 Young Adult A person between 19 and 24 years of age. Adult, Young,Adults, Young,Young Adults
D032882 Comprehension The act or fact of grasping the meaning, nature, or importance of; understanding. (American Heritage Dictionary, 4th ed) Includes understanding by a patient or research subject of information disclosed orally or in writing. Readability,Understanding

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