The role of strategic backtracking when reading digital informational text for understanding

Abstract

This study used a correlational design and a path analytic approach to investigate direct and indirect relationships between strategic backtracking and integrated text understanding when undergraduates read a digital informational text on a tablet or a smartphone. In digital reading contexts, strategic backtracking involves that readers intentionally scroll or page backwards in the text to check or reread something in a previously read paragraph. We measured strategic backtracking by means of observation and integrated text understanding by means of post-reading written reports. Students’ backtracking during reading was found to be a unique positive predictor of integrated text understanding when variance associated with working memory, reading comprehension skills, and processing time were controlled. Further, the relationship between backtracking and integrated text understanding was fully mediated by students’ productivity in the form of the extent of their written reports. These findings are consistent with the notion that a more mindful, deeper approach is beneficial when reading digital informational text for understanding and may, thus, form the basis of future intervention work targeting adaptive processing in digital reading environments.