Transfer of College Developmental Reading Students' Textmarking Strategies

In this study transfer of textmarking strategy use was examined. Four college developmental reading students were asked to use textmarking strategies in their introductory biology course, but not in any other content course in which they were concurrently enrolled. However, at the semester's end, participants produced any textbooks in which they had marked for analysis of spontaneous textmarking. Results revealed that: (a) participants exhibited strong resistance to annotation, had difficulty distinguishing important from trivial information, and organizing and paraphrasing information; (b) participants cited existing knowledge of content material and test expectations as major reasons for textmarking adjustment; (c) participants' statements of textmarking utility were generally consistent with strategy use; and (d) participants gave similar reasons for lack of textmarking transfer. Implications for developmental reading programs based on a strategic learning approach are indicated. Findings support strategy training through direct explanation, including training in specific strategy components and text structure awareness, and integrated strategy instruction in which study strategies instructors are paired with content area specialists.