Leseprozesssteuernde Aufgaben als verstehensunterstützende Maßnahme im Fach Geschichte

Eine Prozessbeobachtung mit Eye-Tracking

Abstract

Reading comprehension at lower secondary level poses a wide range of difficulties for learners. The research project HistText, short for Unterstützung des Leseverstehens im Fach Geschichte, addresses this issue and investigates the extent to which tasks designed to guide reading processes can scaffold and support comprehension processes when learning with expository texts in history classes.

This article presents two phases of the research project: First, it shows the development of reading tasks to regulate and guide reading processes to help students comprehend an expository text from a Swiss history textbook. These tasks are grounded in principles from the field of cognitive psychology and reading education, and they follow the aim of supporting students to overcome empirically identified domain-specific challenges. Second, a qualitative sub-study is presented, in which eye-tracking data were used to examine how eighth-grade students were able to apply the developed reading tasks.

The findings indicate that learners were largely able to use the tasks to support their reading comprehension, although various difficulties nevertheless occurred. The results provide important insights into which aspects should be taken into account in the future when developing and implementing tasks designed to support reading comprehension processes.