Multiple document comprehension of university students: Test development and relations to person and process characteristics

Abstract

Multiple document comprehension is the ability to construct an integrated representation of a specific topic based on several sources. It is an important competence for university students; however, there has been so far no established instrument to assess multiple document comprehension in a standardized way. Therefore, we developed a test covering four theory-based cognitive requirements: The corroboration of information across texts, the integration of information across texts, the comparison of sources and source evaluations across texts, and the comparison of source-content links across texts. The developed test comprised 174 items and was empirically examined in a study with 310 university students. Several items had to be excluded due to psychometricmisfit and differential item functioning. The resulting final test contains 67 items within 5 units (i.e., test structures of 2–3 texts and related items) and has been shown to fit a unidimensional IRT Rasch model. The test score showedexpected relationships to the final school exam grade, the study level (Bachelor/Master), essay performance, sourcing behavior, as well as mental load and mental effort.