Constructing Explanatory Models from Text-Based Information: Why Instructional Tools Help

Scientists frequently construct explanatory models based on information they read about scientific phenomena. Modeling is a complex task involving reasoning about what information from multiple texts, including verbal and visual representations, is task-relevant and how it relates to the model. In this study, ninth graders were randomly assigned to a text-based modeling task with or without an instructional tool designed to support selection and elaborative processing of relevant information. Participants completed prompted self-explanation protocols during the modeling task and a learning task afterward. Participants with the instructional tool demonstrated better model construction and learning. Self-explanation analyses indicated more elaborative processing of relevant information for those with the tool. Elaboration of relevant information significantly mediated the instructional tool effect, indicating that it is not the tool, but the forms of processing that it encouraged, that underlies better model construction and learning. Implications for science literacy instruction are discussed.