Educational Technology & Society

IntroductionVideo games have become ubiquitous in contemporary adolescent Christian Louboutin Shoes
culture. Perhaps unaware that they are doing so, children playing video games are learning skills that can be transferred into practical learning situations. For example, computer-game play can improve spatial skills such as spatial orientation, mental rotation, and spatial visualization (Larish & Andersen, 1995; Okagaki & Frensch, 1994; Greenfield, 1994); develop attention-dividing strategies (Greenfield, deWinstanley, Kilpatrick, & Kaye, 1994); improve spatial integration skills (Greenfield, 1993); and improve understanding of iconic languages (Greenfield, Camaioni et al., 1994). While building spatial visualization can aid gamers in computer-game play, those skills may also aid students in improving reading comprehension. Comprehension of a text is not only parsing of words and sentences, but is also constructing a situation model of the story (Zwaan, Radvansky, Hilliard, & Curiel 1998). Reading is quite complex; readers must create and update the situation model along five dimensions: temporal, spatial, protagonist, causal, and intentionality (Zwann et al., 1995). The spatial dimension is typically hardest for readers (Hakala, 1999; O'Brien & Albrect, 1992). Yet spatial understanding is crucial to a host of disciplines (Casey, Nuttall, Pezaris, & Benbow, 1995; Humphreys, Lubinski, & Yao, 1993; Pribyl & Bodner, 1987). Evaluating the relative strengths of priming activities designed to stimulate the creation of the situation model prior to reading is an important area for empirical study as it can inform design of multimedia materials for education.Readers who study a map prior to reading have better retention of material than readers who study the map after reading (Kulhavy & Stock, 1996). This may be the result of priming the spatial dimension of the reader's situation model prior to reading. For example, icons on the map activate both visuospatial and semantic networks that facilitate comprehension of spatial sentences in the text. It could be that some of the hand-eye activities of computer-game interaction (if they involve maps or other visuospatial stimuli) might initiate an even greater priming of the readers' spatial situation models, as computer-game interaction involves both visual and kinesthetic encoding. Understanding how readers create spatial mental models is essential for instructional designers. It is also an important design factor for new interactive book technologies, such as the interactive map-book (patent pending), which combines hardcopy books with Christian Louboutin Boots
paper-based computer games (via pen-top computers such as LeapFrog's FlyPen and microdot paper) in such a way that readers must complete the paper-based computer games to read further (Smith, 2008). The purpose of this study is to explore to what extent adding interactivity to the reading experience will improve the reader's ability to form their spatial situation models.Literature reviewOne of the fundamental abilities that education attempts to impart to students is the ability to read, and yet many children leave the school systems with only a basic level of reading (Biancarosa & Snow, 2004; Strommen & Mates, 2004). Apparently in the United States, reading instruction does not result in students' acquisition of high-level comprehension (Biancarosa & Snow, 2004; RAND Education, 2005). According to Leonhardt (1998), "The sophisticated skills demanded by high-level academic or professional work--the ability to understand multiple plots or complex issues, a sensitivity to tone, the expertise to know immediately what is crucial to a text and what can be skimmed--can be acquired only through years of avid reading" (p. 29). The ability to read skillfully remains important in the digital age. Although multimedia abounds on the Internet, much of the information available in the digital age is still textual. Krashen (1993) argues that while free voluntary reading (FVR) is not sufficient for higher-level reading skills, developing these skills without FVR is impossible. Krashen also suggests that when children get "hooked on books" that "they acquire, involuntarily ... nearly all of the ... language skills many people are so concerned about" (p. 124). Unfortunately, the steady decline in reading among adolescents (National Endowment for the Arts, 2007) combined with the decline of reading comprehension has resulted in a culture of students who never become "hooked on books" (Krashen, 1993, p. 124) and are losing the ability to understand what they have read.According to the most empirically supported theoretical model, readers process text at three levels: the surface code, textbase, and situation model (van Dijk & Kintsch, 1983; Graesser, Mills & Zwaan, 1997). The surface code is the verbatim wording of the text. The textbase is Christian Louboutin Tall Boots
the propositional structure of the text.