Relations between primary school children’s cognitive and motivational skills, processing, and comprehension of digital multiple texts.

Abstract Purpose Reading in the 21st century requires students to apply cognitive abilities and be motivationally engaged to process and comprehend complex digital multiple texts, defined as rhetorical entities with communicative content (text) and source information. Research on this topic is largely based on secondary school and university students. We focused on primary school children to test direct and indirect relations between readers’ cognitive and motivational skills, processing variables (navigation logs), and the ability to represent source information (source use) and to integrate texts’ content (multiple-text comprehension). Method Fourth and fifth graders (N = 334; Mage = 10.00; 55% girls) read three digital texts discussing whether playing videogames was beneficial. We assessed multiple-text comprehension with argumentative essays and source use with a memory for sources task. Measures of readers’ skills (prior topic knowledge, single-text comprehension, self-efficacy, and task value) and navigation logs (number of visits and time on digital texts) were also collected. We conducted path analyses using Mplus. Results The final model showed positive direct paths between single-text comprehension, prior topic knowledge, and memory for sources, and between single-text comprehension, prior topic knowledge, task value, and multiple-text comprehension (ps < .05). Two positive indirect paths emerged between single-text comprehension and memory for sources (p < .05) through the number of visits to the digital texts, and between single- and multiple-text comprehension through source use (p = .07). Conclusions The study contributes to identifying models of digital multiple-text comprehension in young students and components supporting reading in challenging digital environments.