Belief bias when adolescents read to comprehend multiple conflicting texts

The current study examined the extent to which sixth grade students used their pre-existing topic beliefs to guide comprehension of semantic ideas within multiple conflicting texts, and the sources providing them. Adolescents completed an inventory assessing their pre-reading topic beliefs one week prior to the study. During the study, students read 6 controversial texts, completed an assessment of their metacognitive awareness during reading, and wrote an essay from memory based on information provided by the texts. A between-participants manipulation tasked adolescents to read opposing stances in an alternating format, or to read all arguments for one side prior to switching to the opposing arguments. Regarding the results, the extent of adolescents’ pro-vegetarian topic beliefs predicted their taking a pro-vegetarian stance, inclusion of more belief-consistent and fewer belief-inconsistent (pro-meat) ideas, and fewer mentions of sources in the essays. The extent of adolescents’ topic beliefs also positively predicted expressions of metacognitive awareness during reading. When contradictory stances were experienced in an alternating format, adolescents included more source information in their written essays than when they read all arguments for one side prior to switching to the opposing arguments. The findings have important implications for theories of multiple text comprehension and applications for adolescents’ everyday reading experiences on the web.