Fostering Multiple Document Literacy Skills: A European Perspective (MD-SKILLS)

Basic data for this project

Description

The main goal of this project is to develop and evaluate a new instructional method to develop teenage students' awareness and use of multiple documents. Our approach is grounded in an analysis of the new demands of contemporary societies on individuals' comprehension and use of documentary evidence, and on recent advances into the cognitive resources and processes that support these activities. Based on existing theoretical models, we identify two core skills, namely information evaluation and integration, which form the basis of our research and development program. Evidence from research studies and large-scale surveys suggests that many 15 year-old students experience difficulties when evaluating and integrating information across texts. At the same time, educational systems in France and Germany are lacking adequate assessment and training procedures to develop such skills. Therefore, it is theoretically and educationally relevant to assess students' potential for learning those skills, as well as to develop, implement and evaluate the effectiveness of innovative training procedures, taking into account the constraints and the affordances of different educational systems. By working collaboratively, the participating teams will capitalize on their respective areas of expertise and benefit from transnational observations and outcomes. During the three years of the project, (a) we will develop an original framework to describe the core skills targeted in our training modules and the learning potential of 9th graders; (b) we will develop and test a set of teaching modules and practice tasks focusing on each of the skills and subskills, and (c) we will implement an intervention study in which groups of students from the two countries will develop their multiple document literacy skills. Finally, we will consider the possibilities for the transfer and dissemination of the outcomes of this project to authentic learning environments.