The Role of the Narrative Framing and Latent Meaning Structures of Online Information Used by Medical and Economics Students in Their Generic and Domain-Specific Critical Online Reasoning
Background and Study Focus
In the Information Age, students increasingly learn with online sources. In these sources, content is “framed” in a particular way through narrative devices (e.g. metaphors) and latent meaning structures. Such framing can influence the search for online information as well as its critical processing, as became evident in previous studies concerning the solving of generic (GEN) and domain-specific (DOM) tasks to measure critical online reasoning (COR). Hence, students need specific skills to recognize such latent frames.
Concept and Research Objective
Based on preliminary research, B06 aims to (1) analyze the narrative and latent meaning structures of the online information used by students (when solving the COR tasks); and (2) study whether students recognize these latent structures, i.e., are aware of narrative and meaning structures. In this way, B06 investigates so-called ‘narrative skills’ in students’ learning through the Internet; (3) examine whether narratives and meaning structures influence the COR process (e.g., the selection of information), and (4) longitudinally investigate the role of students’ narrative skills for their solving of GEN- and DOM-COR-tasks in medicine and economics. (5) Based on these findings, B06 further aims to develop a framework for interventions designed to enhance students’ COR by considering their narrative skills.
Measurements and analyses
B06 combines the qualitative method of narratology with reconstructive hermeneutics and draws on the approaches of narrative medicine and narrative economics. Based on the longitudinal subdata set from C07, B06 analyzes the online sources and content used by students to solve COR tasks. The process of students’ task-solving is reconstructed step-by-step, to identify whether students recognized the framings present in the sources. The analysis of students’ response processes is supported through the analysis of eye-tracking data and think-aloud protocols (together with C07).
Research Outcomes
B06 retraces students’ COR task-solving process and describes the role that narrative skills may potentially have in this process. Therefore, B06 first identifies narratives and meaning structures, which can hamper or stimulate students’ COR processes and performance. These analyses and findings provide a solid basis for the conceptual development of interventions to foster students’ COR skills (in the 2nd research phase).
Contribution within the research unit CORE
B06 cooperates with B04 and B05 in the analysis of the information landscape and in identifying important influences in online sources, which may be especially challenging for students. With the help of a detailed analysis of student responses and task-solving processes, B06 generates hypotheses for recalibrating the COR-tasks of the A-projects.
Publications
Peer Reviewed Articles
2026
Banerjee, M., Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia, O., Schelle, C., Braunheim, D., & Touzos, A. A. (in press). Critical online reasoning among first-year medical students in Germany: A narrative analysis of the use of online information. GMS Journal for Medical Education.
Braunheim, D., Schelle, C., Nell-Müller, S., Scherer, T., & Laufer, A. (2026). Research processes of students in the digital learning environment – Potential of interdisciplinary COR-analyses in multimodal datasets [Manuscript submitted for publication].
Schelle, C., Banerjee, M., Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia, O., Touzos, A. A., & Braunheim, D. (2026). Critical handling of online information by prospective teachers: A complementary analysis using narration and reconstruction approaches. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 42(1), Article e70187. https://doi.org/10.1002/jcal.70187
2025
Schelle, C., Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia, O., Banerjee, M., Braunheim, D., & Touzos, A. A. (2025). Zum kritischen Umgang Studierender mit Internetinformationen – Analysen mittels Rekonstruktion und Narratologie in digitalen Umgebungen. Zeitschrift für Bildungsforschung, 15(3). https://doi.org/10.1007/s35834-025-00503-7
2024
Banerjee, M., Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia, O., & Schelle, C. (2024). The role of narrative framings and latent meaning structures in online information processing of young professionals: Potentials for an innovative mixed methods approach. In O. Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia, M.-T. Nagel, V. Klose, & A. Mehler (Eds.), Students’, graduates’ and young professionals’ critical use of online information: Digital performance assessment and training within and across domains (pp. 241–256). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-69510-0_11
Braunheim, D., Köttering, L., Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia, O., & Nagel, M.-T. (2024). Specifics of sourcing challenges in the law domain: A comparative analysis of search approaches when solving a legal case study. In O. Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia, M.-T. Nagel, V. Klose, & A. Mehler (Eds.), Students’, graduates’ and young professionals’ critical use of online information: Digital performance assessment and training within and across domains (pp. 95–111). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-69510-0_5
Braunheim, D. (2024). Effects of regular media use of young professionals on their online source selection during a situated digital performance assessment. In O. Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia, M.-T. Nagel, V. Klose, & A. Mehler (Eds.), Students’, graduates’ and young professionals’ critical use of online information: Digital performance assessment and training within and across domains (pp. 47–65). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-69510-0_3
Braunheim, D., Martin De Los Santos Kleinz, L., & Trierweiler, L. (2024). Differences in source selection and their effect on the quality of written statements during a critical online reasoning performance assessment. Frontiers in Computer Science, 6, Article 1366934. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomp.2024.1366934
Touzos, A. A., Laufer, A., Banerjee, M., & Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia, O. (2024). The role of website narratives in young professionals’ critical online reasoning. In O. Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia, M.-T. Nagel, V. Klose, & A. Mehler (Eds.), Students’, graduates’ and young professionals’ critical use of online information: Digital performance assessment and training within and across domains (pp. 67–91). Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-69510-0_4
Paper and Poster Presentations
2026
Banerjee, M., Schelle, C., Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia, O., Braunheim, D., & Touzos, A. A. (2026, March 25). Critical Online Reasoning (COR) bei Studierenden der Wirtschaftspädagogik: Sprachanalytische und narrative Betrachtung der verwendeten Quellen und studentischen Antworten [Conference presentation]. 30th Congress of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Erziehungswissenschaft (DGfE), Munich, Germany.
Braunheim, D., Schelle, C., Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia, O., Banerjee, M., & Touzos, A. A. (2026a, March 22–25). Rekonstruktionen internetbasierter Lösungen von domänenspezifischen Critical Online Reasoning (COR)-Aufgaben Studierender der Wirtschaftspädagogik mit und ohne KI-Nutzung [Conference presentation]. 30th Congress of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Erziehungswissenschaft (DGfE), Munich, Germany.
Braunheim, D., Schelle, C., Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia, O., Banerjee, M., & Touzos, A. A. (2026b, June 10). University students’ framing and rational reasoning in open-web tasks: A reconstructive approach [Symposium presentation]. EARLI SIG 4 & 11 Conference 2026, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
Schelle, C., Banerjee, M., Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia, O., Braunheim, D., & Touzos, A. A. (2026, April). Utilisation de sources Internet et de textes générés par l’IA dans les processus de résolution de tâches par des étudiants en économie – Reconstructions à partir de captures d’écran [Conference presentation]. Colloque International, FASTEF, Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar (UCAD), Dakar, Senegal.
Touzos, A. A., Banerjee, M., Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia, O., Schelle, C., Braunheim, D., & Alexander, P. A. (2026, June 10). Critical use of online sources by university students: Narrative analyses to detect authority bias [Symposium presentation]. EARLI SIG 4 & 11 Conference 2026, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland.
2025
Braunheim, D., Schelle, C., Banerjee, M., Touzos, A. A., & Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia, O. (2025, January 27). Sprachgebrauch und fachliche Kontextualisierungen beim Aufgabenlösen in Internet-Lernumgebungen – Critical Online Reasoning in studentischen Bildungsgängen der Ökonomie und Medizin [Symposium presentation]. 12th Annual Conference of the Gesellschaft für Empirische Bildungsforschung (GEBF), Mannheim, Germany.
Schelle, C., & Braunheim, D. (2025a, June 13). Zur Macht doppelter Framings beim Umgang Studierender mit zukunftsrelevanten Informationen aus dem Internet – Eine narrativ-rekonstruktive Studie [Conference presentation]. 25th Annual Conference of the Gesellschaft für Politikdidaktik und außerschulische Jugend- und Erwachsenenbildung (GPJE), Gießen, Germany.
Schelle, C., Banerjee, M., Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia, O., Braunheim, D., & Touzos, A. A. (2025b, August 27). Narrative-reconstructive case study of students’ critical online reasoning [Symposium presentation]. 21st Biennial Conference of the European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction (EARLI), Graz, Austria.
Touzos, A. A., Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia, O., Banerjee, M., Schelle, C., & Braunheim, D. (2025, August 29). Critical online reasoning and the use of online sources by students of economics and medicine [Symposium presentation]. 21st Biennial Conference of the European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction (EARLI), Graz, Austria.
2024
Banerjee, M., Schelle, C., Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia, O., Touzos, A., & Braunheim, D. (2024, March 12). Hermeneutische und narrative Analysen studentischer Critical Online Reasoning (COR)-Prozesse beim Lösen generischer und domänenspezifischer Aufgaben in einer digitalen Lernumgebung [Poster presentation]. 29th Congress of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Erziehungswissenschaft (DGfE), Halle, Germany.
Braunheim, D., Schelle, C., Banerjee, M., Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia, O., & Touzos, A. A. (2024, March 12). Hermeneutic and narrative analysis of students’ Critical Online Reasoning (COR) [Poster presentation]. 29th Congress of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Erziehungswissenschaft (DGfE), Halle, Germany.
Schelle, C., Banerjee, M., Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia, O., Braunheim, D., & Touzos, A. (2024a, March 19). Zum kritischen Umgang Studierender mit Internetinformationen – Methodologische Potentiale hermeneutisch-rekonstruktiver und narrativer Analysen in digitalen Lernumgebungen [Paper presentation]. 11th Annual Conference of the Gesellschaft für Empirische Bildungsforschung (GEBF), Potsdam, Germany.
Schelle, C., Banerjee, M., Braunheim, D., & Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia, O. (2024b, April 13). A reconstructive hermeneutic and narrative analysis of students’ critical reasoning processes performing an internet search [Symposium presentation]. Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), Philadelphia, PA, United States.
Schelle, C., Nell-Müller, S., & Braunheim, D. (2024c, June 27). Des étudiants résolvent des tâches à l’aide d’informations tirées d’Internet – Potentiels d’analyses reconstructives et narratives [Conference presentation]. Objets frontières et transformations en éducation et formation: Approches théoriques, études empiriques, pratiques professionnelles, LIRTES, Université Paris-Est Créteil, Créteil, France.
Schelle, C., Banerjee, M., Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia, O., Braunheim, D., & Touzos, A. (2024d, September 8–12). Economics students’ critical use of Internet information [Conference presentation]. BERA Conference 2024 and WERA Focal Meeting, Manchester, England.
Schelle, C., Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia, O., Touzos, A. A., & Braunheim, D. (2024e, September 18–20). The role of narrative and latent meaning structures in students’ critical online reasoning [Conference presentation]. EARLI SIG 26, Berlin, Germany.
Touzos, A. A., Banerjee, M., Braunheim, D., & Schelle, C. (2024, August). Critical online reasoning in der medizinischen Ausbildung: Narrative und hermeneutisch-rekonstruktive Analysezugänge zum Umgang von Medizinstudierenden mit Online-Quellen [Conference presentation]. Symposium Critical Online Reasoning in der medizinischen Ausbildung, Jahrestagung der Gesellschaft für Medizinische Ausbildung (GMA), Fribourg, Switzerland.
2023
Banerjee, M., Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia, O., Schelle, C., & Kohmer, A. (2023, November 22–24). Narrative framing & latent meaning structures of online information used by students in their critical online reasoning [Paper presentation]. WERA Focal Meeting 2023, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
Schelle, C. (2023a, June 27). The role of narrative framing and latent meaning structures of online information used by medical and economics students in their COR [Poster presentation]. Institutstag des Instituts für Erziehungswissenschaft, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.
Schelle, C. (2023b, September 15). Zur Rolle von narrativen Framings und latenten Bedeutungsstrukturen in Online-Informationen und deren Verarbeitung – Potentiale eines innovativen Mixed-Method-Designs [Symposium presentation]. AEPF 2023, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany. (In cooperation with O. Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia & M. Banerjee)
Schelle, C. (2023c, October 21). Zum kritischen Umgang mit Internetinformationen bei Studierenden – Potentiale eines innovativen methodenintegrativen Settings für die politische Bildung [Conference presentation]. Arbeitskreis Fachunterrichtsforschung Politik (AFP-GPJE), TU Dortmund, Dortmund, Germany. (In cooperation with O. Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia & M. Banerjee)
Other Relevant Publications and Presentations (Selection)
Banerjee, M. (in press). Narrative medicine: Race, justice, and interprofessional care. In A. DeWitt (Ed.), The Oxford handbook of literature and science from the nineteenth century to the present. Oxford University Press.
Banerjee, M. (2026). Biological humanities: Exploring human life in life sciences and life writing. In A. Hornung & H. Schwalm (Eds.), Handbook of life writing. De Gruyter.
Banerjee, M. (2025a). Biomediality in the Andes: Life writing and disability in Violeta Ayala’s and Dan Fallshaw’s The Fight. In W. Raussert & S. Rocha Teixeira (Eds.), Life narratives, creativity, and the social in the Americas (pp. 201–220). De Gruyter. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111551968-011
Banerjee, M. (2025b). Musing 1: Narrative medicine, racial justice and the Black maternal mortality crisis. In M.-L. Cenedese & C. Nicastro (Eds.), Violence, care, cure: Self/perceptions within the medical encounter (pp. 17–24). Routledge.
Banerjee, M., & Efferth, T. (2025a, January 15). Discussion of pharmaceutical humanities [Online presentation]. Narrative Medicine International Working Group, Columbia University, New York, NY, United States.
Banerjee, M., & Efferth, T. (2025b). Pharmaceutical humanities and narrative pharmacy: An emerging new concept in pharmacy. Pharmaceuticals, 18(1), Article 48. https://doi.org/10.3390/ph18010048
Banerjee, M., & Höll, D. (Eds.). (2023). Special forum: Diagnosing migrant experience: Medical humanities and transnational American studies [Special issue]. Journal of Transnational American Studies, 14(2).
Banerjee, M. (2023). “What the eyes don’t see”: Medical citizenship and environmental justice in Mona Hanna-Attisha’s medical memoir. In V. Evans & M. Banerjee (Eds.), Cultures of citizenship in the twenty-first century: Literary and cultural perspectives on a legal concept (pp. 271–290). Transcript. https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839470190-014
Banerjee, M., & Touzos, A. A. (2023, May 26). Staffel 2, Folge 10: Menschen erzählen (R. Holl, Interviewer) [Audio podcast episode]. In Kannste vergessen?—Der Podcast vom Lernen, Vergessen und Erinnern. Collaborative Research Center SFB 1280, Ruhr University Bochum. https://sfb1280.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/podcast/
Touzos, A. A. (2026a). Playing (with) care: Chronische Krankheit in Hyper Light Drifter. In A. Görgen & S. Simond (Eds.), Krankheit in digitalen Spielen 2 [Manuscript accepted for publication].
Touzos, A. A. (2026b). Killjoy play: Illness, disability, and no-fun pleasures in video games. Abstract proceedings of DiGRA 2026. Digital Games Research Association. https://dl.digra.org/index.php/dl/article/view/3078
Touzos, A. A. (2026c, June 17). Killjoy play: Illness, disability, and no-fun pleasures in video games [Conference presentation]. DiGRA 2026: Intersectional Pleasures, Maynooth University, Maynooth, Ireland.
Touzos, A. A. (2026d, January 8–10). “The objective of the scalpel is to soothe”: Medical Gothic in video games [Conference presentation]. MLA Annual Convention 2026, Toronto, Canada.
Touzos, A. A. (2026e, August 10–13). Waiting, failing, caring: Chronic illness as play in “you’re just imagining it” (npckc 2025) [Conference presentation]. Foundations of Digital Games 2026, Royal Danish Academy, Copenhagen, Denmark.
Touzos, A. A. (2024, November 28). A game of life and death: Medical simulation in war video games [Conference presentation]. Leibniz ScienceCampus Annual Conference 2024, Playing War: Simulations, Games, Exercises, and the Representation of Military Force and Violence, Regensburg, Germany.
Touzos, A. A. (2023). “You’re my people now”: The Last of Us series on the question of human belonging and citizenship during the age of pandemics. In V. Evans & M. Banerjee (Eds.), Cultures of citizenship in the twenty-first century: Literary and cultural perspectives on a legal concept (pp. 311–333). Transcript. https://doi.org/10.14361/9783839470190-016
Workshops & Guest Lectures
Wernet, A. (Organizer). (2025, March 13). Objective hermeneutics in the analysis of students’ written statements in CORE [Workshop]. Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Mainz, Germany. (With C. Schelle, M. Banerjee, O. Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia, & D. Braunheim)
Spencer, D. (2024, June 5). New directions in narrative medicine [Guest lecture]. Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Mainz, Germany.
Schelle, C., & Braunheim, D. (2024, September 26). Critical Online Reasoning und Aufgabenlösungsprozesse in Internet-basierten Lernumgebungen Studierender – Einblicke in die Potentiale und Herausforderungen multimodaler Datenpools für die Fachunterrichtsforschung Politik [Workshop]. Arbeitskreis Politikunterrichtsforschung (GPJE), Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Mainz, Germany. (In cooperation with O. Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia, M. Banerjee, & A. A. Touzos)
Thesis Supervision
Ostojic, J. (2024). Narrative Analysen in der Hochschulforschung: Qualitative Analyse zur Untersuchung domänenspezifischen Critical Online Reasonings von Studierenden der Wirtschaftspädagogik [Master’s thesis, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz]. (First examiner: Olga Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia; Second examiner: Mita Banerjee; Supervisor: Amina A. Touzos)
Ivankovic, T. (2024). Qualitative Analyse domänenspezifischen Critical Online Reasonings von Studierenden der Sozial- und Wirtschaftswissenschaften inkl. Wirtschaftspädagogik [Master’s thesis, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz]. (First examiner: Olga Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia; Second examiner: Mita Banerjee; Supervisor: Amina A. Touzos)
Kulter, L. (2024). Narrative Analysen zur Untersuchung von Internetquellen und der Informationsverarbeitung von Studierenden [Bachelor’s thesis, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz]. (First examiner: Olga Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia; Second examiner: Mita Banerjee; Supervisor: Amina A. Touzos)