Comparing German and American students' cognitive strategies and affective attributes toward online inquiry

摘要

Competent use of the Internet to locate information is an important skill for today's youth. Yet, many lack the knowledge and dispositions to engage in the processes necessary to effectively and efficiently find information on the Internet. As a result, various countries have incorporated references to the processes of online inquiry within their educational standards. Despite similarities in these standards, however, international comparisons are rare and have not produced insights into broader themes and patterns regarding how cognitive, metacognitive, and affective variables interact to influence outcomes on related measures of success, e.g., international assessments. The purpose of this research was two-fold: to examine the measurement invariance of a German-language version of the Survey of Online Reading Attitudes and Behaviors across a sample of participants from Germany and to compare the results with students from United States who completed the English-version of SORAB. The results justified comparisons across the samples with respect to the latent factor variables and comparisons yielded differences associated with cognitive and behavioral engagement, value/ interest, and anxiety. No differences were noted with regard to self-regulation and efficacy for online reading. Implications are framed within broader contextual variables that may have been influential in producing the differences between the samples.