LETRAS DE HOJE Comparing the effectiveness of study strategies on comprehension, retention, and learning from L2 English texts

: This study compared the use of the study strategies rereading, highlighting, and note-taking on the levels of comprehension, retention, and learning from L2 texts. Nineteen intermediate students of English (L2) participated in the study. In phase 1, they studied three expository texts in English, each with the support of a different strategy. After reading, they answered an immediate recall and true/false statements. Phase 2 took place a week after and comprised delayed recalls and a critical writing task. Prior to data collection, participants received instruction on study strategies to ensure they knew about the strategies to be worked with. Results of immediate recalls pointed to rereading as an effective strategy to comprehension; highlighting was related to higher true or false scores. Regarding retention, good performance in the delayed recalls was associated with the highlighting and note-taking conditions. Thus, the effects of rereading did not endure delayed tests, providing evidence for the ineffectiveness of this strategy for retention compared to highlighting and note-taking. Results from the critical writing task demonstrated that the task fostered elaborative inferen- cing, although the number of explicit text references was small. A link between highlighting and learning is hypothesized.

Resumen: Este estudio comparó el uso de las estrategias de estudio releer, resaltar texto y tomar notas en los niveles de comprensión, retención y aprendizaje de textos en L2. Participaran del estudio diecinueve estudiantes de inglés (L2). En la fase 1, estudiaron tres textos expositivos en inglés, utilizando una estrategia diferente para cada texto. Después de leer, hicieron una tarea de recuerdo inmediato (free recall) y cuestiones de verdadero/falso. La fase 2 ocurrió una semana después y comprendió una tarea de recuerdo tardío (delayed recall) y una tarea de escritura crítica. Antes de la recopilación de datos, los participantes recibieron instrucción en estrategias de estudio para asegurarse que conocían las estrategias a ser empleadas. Los resultados de los recuerdos inmediatos indicaron a la relectura como una estrategia eficiente para la comprensión; resaltar texto se relacionó con puntuación más alta en las cuestiones de verdadero/falso. En cuanto a la retención, mejor desempeño en el recuerdo tardío se asoció a las condiciones de resaltar texto y tomar notas. Es decir, el efecto de la relectura no perduró por los testes tardíos, lo que demuestra la ineficacia de esta estrategia para retención en comparación a resaltar texto y tomar notas. Los resultados de la tarea Strategic reading has been researched both in L1 (PARIS et al., 1983;WASIK;TURNER, 1991, AFFLERBACH et al., 2008 and L2 (WEINS-TEIN;MAYER, 1986;ANDERSON, 1991;CHAMOT;EL-DINARY, 1999). Research on reading strategies has focused on strategy use at the comprehension level (PARIS et al., 1983;SPRING, 1985;BAKER, 1989;MAGLIANO;TRABASSO;GRAESSER, 1999;JAFARI, 2002). Yet, few studies have explored the impact of study strategies on higher processing levels, i.e., comprehension and learning (DYER; RILEY;YEKOVICH, 1979). Noteworthy, these studies were carried out in the L1 context; therefore, there seems to be plenty of room to investigate the effect of study strategies on distinct levels in ESL reading. Study strategies encompass actions like underlining, annotating on the margins or taking notes separately on the main ideas, facts, and concepts that arise from the text (TOMITCH, 2012). They enhance retention but may pose a higher cognitive effort as the reader has to (re) organize the information from the text.
Rereading, highlighting and note-taking were the strategies dealt with in the present study.
This selection was based on the assumption that there is a greater depth of processing involved in highlighting and note taking as compared to rereading. This greater depth "implies a greater degree of semantic or cognitive analysis" through enrichment or elaboration (CRAIK; LOCKHART, 1972, p. 675). Thus, comparing the effectiveness of these actions may provide data on the value of more "laborious" strategies, especially in study situations, where the text not only has to be comprehended but also retained and, ultimately, learned, so that it becomes available for further knowledge construction. Therefore, the present study had as its main objective to compare the use of the study strategies rereading, highlighting, and note-taking on the levels of comprehension, retention, and learning from L2 texts.

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interrelated processes of increasing complexity. Reading comprehension is the process of constructing a representation of the text in the mind, i.e., its most important idea units and the hierarchical relations among them. This textbase representation is integrated to the reader's prior knowledge and experiences into a situation model of the text .
Retention refers to the cognitive processes of encoding information into long-term memory.
To explain how retention takes place, this study will rely on Craik and Lockhart's (1972) (GAGNÉ et al., 1993). As a result, deeper levels of processing are linked to stronger memory traces and increase the probability of transfer in learning tasks.
Learning from text requires the recruitment of both high and low cognitive processes. If the situation requires verbatim memorization, the reader will engage in rote association, which often consists of simply repeating the concepts (JUST; CARPENTER, 1987), for instance, word-meaning relations. Nonetheless, most learning situations call for a higher level of cognitive involvement, in which the text is processed actively and with conscious attention. This is referred to as organizational learning, which involves "developing an organization, based on the structure and content of the text itself, that the reader can use to relate the new information to what she already knows" (JUST; CARPENTER, 1987, p. 404). Organizing improves recognition and delayed recall, and increases the chances that the content will be applied in novel contexts.

Reading strategies and study strategies -drawing the line
Reading comprehension strategies are characterized by being deliberate, goal-oriented and reader-initiated and controlled actions (KODA, 2004;MANOLI;PAPADOPOULOU, 2012;AFFLER-BACH et al., 2008). A strategic reader consciously implements strategies considering factors such as his/her objectives, the difficulty imposed by the text, the task and his/her own capacity. In particular, reading with the objective of learning involves employing a distinct set of strategies that require "to synthesize, interpret, evaluate, and selectively use information from texts." (GRA-BE, 2009, p. 5). This process is associated with reorganizing text information through the use of study strategies such as deciding to reread for clarification, highlighting what is considered important, taking notes, paraphrasing, summarizing the text to grasp its main ideas, constructing charts or tables (Table 1). Highlighting is commonly employed by students; its use is associated with higher scores in

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College students read a text with or without taking notes. Next, half of the ones who took notes also Students were informed that this was a regular class activity: all of them would participate, and the ones who did not want their data to be used in the study were instructed not to sign the consent form. From the initial sample of participants of 31 participants, only twelve provided valid, complete data. At the first part of data collection there were absences in either Phase 1 or 2 or both.
Participants who did not follow the instructions properly (e.g. did not highlight or take notes as requested), a student with dyslexia and three underage students were excluded from the sample.
To increase the number of participants, students from another group within the same level were invited to take part in the study. This group also participated in the workshops, offered during their class time with the consent of the teacher. Data collection with the seven participants from this group happened in individual meetings scheduled with each participant out of class time. The total sample analyzed was constituted by 19 partici-pants who were divided into three groups (Table 2) aimed at randomizing the order of the texts read and the strategies they were required to apply.

Instruments for data collection
The materials used that comprise the scope of this paper were: 1) three expository texts; 2) three immediate comprehension tests, each comprising an immediate recall and a set of five true or false statements; 3) a retention test consisting of a delayed recall of each of the texts; and 4) a learning test consisting of a critical writing task.
Except for the expository texts, which were in English, the instruments were administered in Portuguese to minimize proficiency constraints.

Comprehension measures
Three texts were selected for this study: two texts about fake news and one text about fact--checking (Table 3). Suppressions and adaptations were made by this researcher in order to control for complexity and length. Additionally, a glossary was included in each text containing the less common words. Recall protocols (KINTSCH; VAN DIJK, 1978) consist of asking participants to write down everything they would remember immediately after reading without looking back at the text. This test was followed by a true or false task comprising 5 statements involving implicit inference generation following the framework proposed by Pearson and Johnson (1974), according to which implicit information requires the reader's ability to connect different propositions and associate them with prior knowledge.

Retention measures
Participants were asked to perform a delayed recall one week after having read the texts. The procedures were similar to the immediate recalls: they were asked to write down everything they remembered about each of the three texts, one at a time, on a worksheet. There was one difference: in the delayed recalls, the title of each text was provided; in addition, they were handed in to the participants in the same order as the texts read seven days before to facilitate retrieval.

Procedures
Prior to data collection, two 90-minutes workshops on study strategies were conducted by the first author during class time for each of the three groups of possible participants. These workshops were proposed to ensure participants have had contact with the strategies to be worked with in the study. The first workshop focused on highlighting and main idea identification, while the second focused on note-taking. They combined explicit instruction, individual and group practice.
Phase 1: In phase 1, participants were divided into three groups, aiming at mixing the order of the texts and the strategies to be applied with each text (Table 4). Participants were given the text and instructed to study its content (Table 5). Both written and oral instructions were provided; they varied depending on the condition.
Há um glossário ao final para ajudá-lo. (Read carefully the text below. You can read and reread as many times as you want within the time set. There is a glossary at the end of the text to help you).
Instructions for the highlighting conditon Estude atentamente o texto abaixo. Você pode ler e realçar o texto usando marca-texto dentro do tempo estabelecido. Há um glossário ao final para ajudá-lo. (Read carefully the text below. You can read and highlight the text using a highlighter within the time set. There is a glossary at the end of the text to help you).

Instructions for the note-taking condition
Estude atentamente o texto abaixo. Você pode ler e tomar notas livremente na folha apropriada dentro do tempo estabelecido. Há um glossário ao final do texto para ajudá-lo. (Read carefully the text below. You can take notes freely on a separate sheet of paper within the time set. There is a glossary at the end of the text to help you).
When the time was over, they underwent the comprehension test (immediate written recall and true or false statements). This procedure was repeated in each of the three texts read. retention through a delayed recall: students were asked to write down as much as they could remember from each of the three texts they had read, one at a time. Delayed recalls were followed by the Critical writing task. They were instructed to write in Portuguese and to use all the information they could remember from the readings as well as their background knowledge in order to give support to their arguments, stating an informed opinion on the topic.

Data analysis
Three anonymous raters who were researchers in reading were asked to categorize all the statements from each text in main idea (M), supporting idea (S) and detail. The statements lacking inter-rater reliability were then analyzed by a fourth rater (Table 6). Additionally, the raters analyzed the true of false statements to check whether they carried explicit or implicit relations with the textual information, following the framework proposed by Pearson and Johnson (1974). Ratings were organized in a table which was used as a framework for analysis of the immediate and delayed recalls. As regards the critical writing task, analysis comprised checking whether the propositions encoded from the three previously read texts were explicitly mentioned in the students' writing. All levels of inference were taken into account as indexes of reconstructive use of the knowledge acquired. Last, the average true or false test scores were grouped per text (Table 7) and compared across conditions. Scores in Text 1 were higher in the rereading condition compared to the highlighting and notetaking conditions. In the true or false of Text 2, answers were more accurate in the highlighting condition compared to rereading and note-taking.

Effect of strategy use on comprehension
Last, performance in the true or false of Text 3 was also better after readers had highlighted the text than after rereading or taking notes. This data shows a relationship between the study of texts in the highlighting condition and high scores in the True or False Task (texts 2 and 3).  , v. 57, n. 1, p. 1-15, jan.-dez. 2022| e-41961 al., 1990DUNLOSKY et al., 2013;YUE;STORM;KORNELL;BJORK, 2015).
Notwithstanding, the efficiency of rereading has been questioned compared to other study methods. In the words of Callender and McDaniel (2009, p. 39) words, "rereading is not an especially effective use of a student's study time." (2009, p. 39 reports pointed to rereading as a helpful tool to understand the text, but no evidence was found of elaboration.

Effects of strategy use on retention
The effect of study strategies on retention was investigated first by comparing the average results from the delayed recalls across conditions; second, individual performance was analyzed across conditions. In phase 2, results on strategy effectiveness were different for the delayed recalls compared to immediate recalls.
After a week delay, results indicated a connectedness between highlighting and enhanced delayed recall: in general, 15% of the total ideas were recalled after a delay when texts were read in this condition. Delayed recall of texts that were read and reread comprised 13,8% of the total ideas and 13% of the total ideas were recalled from texts that had been read in the note-taking condition.
A higher percentage of main ideas was recalled after a delay across all texts when notes had been taken (32,4%), although highlighting (32,1%) has a similar result. In the rereading condition, only 17,6% of the main ideas were recalled. Highlighting also enhanced delayed recall of supporting ideas (23,9%), while rereading led to 17,6% of recall of supporting ideas; 14,3% of supporting ideas were recalled after taking notes. The percentage of details recalled after a one-week delay is not significant and will not be approached. Thus, there was more retention of texts that had been read in the highlighting condition; main idea recall was similar in the note-taking and highlighting conditions.
The effectiveness of each condition is not so evident when measured in number of participants.
In general (main ideas, supporting ideas and details altogether), having highlighted the text favored delayed recall for eight participants; six participants benefited from prior rereading and three participants performed better in the delayed recall of the previously annotated texts. Two participants were not included in this analysis because their results were similar across conditions. Seen separately, each level of textual hierarchy was influenced by one condition: retention of main ideas was better in the rereading condition for seven participants; the highlighting condition favored delayed recall of main ideas for five participants and delayed recall of details was better in the note-taking condition for four participants.

Conclusions on the effects of study strategies on retention
After seven days, highlighting was associated with enhanced recall. In addition, more main ideas were recalled in the note-taking condition, although highlighting has had a similar effect. Another limitation concerns the effects of instruction. The two workshops on highlighting and note-taking offered to the participants prior to data collection were not a requirement for participation; their only goal was to ensure participants' knowledge of the study strategies to be worked with. Thus, it was unclear whether participants' metacognitive behavior was influenced by strategy instruction.
The last limitation of this study refers to its learning instruments and data analysis. The critical writing task was conceived to trigger the transfer of the ideas recalled after a delay. Nonetheless, participants made few explicit mentions to the ideas from the texts, hindering learning assessment. The difficulty relies on creating an instrument that enables the identification of accurate correlations between the use of study strategies and their impact on learning. In addition to task, a finer-grained analysis of the notes could have unveiled the effect of verbatim copying x elaboration on the levels analyzed, following more recent studies on note-taking (MUELLER; OPPENHEI-MER, 2014;HAGEN et al., 2014). In addition, since the analysis focused on the comparison between immediate x delayed recall and the transfer of these ideas to the critical writing task, the issue of integration across multiple documents has not been explored.
As previously stated, conditional knowledge refers to the reader's ability to the act of evaluating and monitoring the appropriateness of a strategy considering the task and the text structure (PARIS et al, 1983). In this study, participants were randomly assigned to the text + strategy Last, this study has some pedagogical implications. The first is the importance of fostering students' metacognitive awareness when reading in L2 and, in specific, awareness on study strategies (BAKER; BROWN, 1984;BAKER, 1989;WASIK;TURNER, 1991;NIST;SIMPSON, 2000, SPRING, 1985. Especially in study situations, when readers have the goal of learning from text, simply reading does not suffice: learners need to be aware of the tools at their disposal as well as to reflect on how they should use study strategies, selecting the ones that are suitable to their goals, evaluating and monitoring the efficiency of these strategies, and making changes when necessary in order to optimize their learning. In this scenario, formal instruction on reading and study strategies is of paramount importance, and researchers point out the need for more studies on strategy instruction in classroom settings (NIST; SIMPSON, 2000;CHAMOT, 2005). In our study, the workshops had the objective of simply getting participants acquainted with the strategies; nevertheless, they fostered metacognitive thinking and gave participants ideas on how to use strategies more effectively, as well as practice. It is expected that the results here reported have somehow contributed to the discussions on metacognition and study strategies by providing evidence on the need for an active -albeit effortful -role of the student when reading a text with the objective of learning its content.