title: iSTART: interactive strategy training for active reading and thinking.
abstract: Interactive Strategy Training for Active Reading and Thinking (iSTART) is a Web-based application that provides young adolescent to college-age students with high-level reading strategy training to improve comprehension of science texts. iSTART is modeled after an effective, human-delivered intervention called self-explanation reading training (SERT), which trains readers to use active reading strategies to self-explain difficult texts more effectively. To make the training more widely available, the Web-based trainer has been developed. Transforming the training from a human-delivered application to a computer-based one has resulted in a highly interactive trainer that adapts its methods to the performance of the students. The iSTART trainer introduces the strategies in a simulated classroom setting with interaction between three animated characters-an instructor character and two student characters-and the human trainee. Thereafter, the trainee identifies the strategies in the explanations of a student character who is guided by an instructor character. Finally, the trainee practices self-explanation under the guidance of an instructor character. We describe this system and discuss how appropriate feedback is generated.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Memphis, Memphis 38152, Tennessee, USA. d.mcnamara@mail.psyc.memphis.edu
authors.forename: Danielle S
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: McNamara
authors.forename: Irwin B
authors.initials: IB
authors.lastname: Levinstein
authors.forename: Chutima
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Boonthum
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D003071:Cognition; D032882:Comprehension; D003198:Computer Simulation; D003194:Computer-Assisted Instruction / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D008606:Mental Processes; D011932:Reading; D012586:Science / Q000193:education*; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology; D013782:Textbooks as Topic; D014495:Universities