Students’ Generic and Domain-Specific Critical Online Reasoning Task-solving Processes and Strategies and Their Development over the Course of a Degree Program in and across the Four Domains (Economics, Medicine, Physics, Sociology)
Background and Study Focus
Digital media and online information environments influence the acquisition of student knowledge and learning processes. An effective way to understand the reasons for these influences are the analysis of task-solving strategies that can be determined by the recording of eye movements together with retrospective think-aloud protocols . Previous research found that task-solving strategies vary between correct and incorrect responses to domain-specific tasks, and students have difficulties in successfully transferring task-solving strategies to other (task and learning) contexts. Similarly, the task-solving processes in critical online reasoning (COR) tasks of high and low performing students differ, e.g. in the time spent on websites. Thus, it can be expected that the detailed analysis of task-solving strategies will reveal reasons for high and low domain-specific (DOM) and generic (GEN)-COR performances.
Concept and Research Objective
C07 aims to identify task-solving strategies of high- and low-performing students in GEN- and DOM-COR tasks and the developments thereof. It will also investigate the effects of prior domain knowledge as well as the influence of media- and content-related, narrative and linguistic features of Web information on differences of task-solving strategies and COR performances.
Measurements and analyses
C07 will record eye movements and retrospective think-aloud protocols of students’ subgroups (from the total sample) from each domain during GEN- and DOM-COR tasks at each measurement. Both methods will be used in the GEN- and DOM-COR tasks that use real Internet as well as the Internet-like simulations. The positions and sizes of areas of interest will be determined together with B-projects. Next, C07 will investigate the role of task-solving strategies for successful task performances and how they are linked to students’ domain knowledge in mediation and multilevel analyses.
Research Outcomes
C07 will identify successful and unsuccessful task-solving strategies and changes therein, and these task-solving strategies as well as their development will be compared across the four measurements and the four domains. The results will reveal the interplay between the task-solving strategies and domain knowledge as well as the performance in GEN- and DOM-COR tasks. Furthermore, with these results, C07 will be able to develop the necessary fine-grained basis for the design of targeted instructional interventions for the 2nd research phase.
Contribution within the research unit CORE
C07 provides insights into task-solving strategies and relates them to students’ domain knowledge and COR task performance together with the A-projects and with a particular focus on online information features together with the B-projects. The results of successful and unsuccessful task-solving strategies will provide guidelines for the design of new COR tasks especially using the Internet-like simulations in the A-projects, and it will provide information about areas considered and ignored by students within the Internet environment during task-solving for the B-projects.
Publications
Peer Reviewed Articles
Maur, A., Kunz, A.-K., Weber, M., Klose, V., Kohmer, A., Dinc, Y., Ruf, V., & Küchemann, S. (in press). Exploring browsing patterns in domain-specific critical online reasoning: An eye-tracking study on visits and fixations in different website areas. Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft.
Kohmer, A. (2024). Acquisition and promotion of critical online reasoning skills among students in medicine, law, and teaching (Doctoral dissertation). Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz.
Kunz, A.-K., Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia, O., Schmidt, S., Nagel, M.-T., & Brückner, S. (2024). Investigation of students’ use of online information in higher education using eye tracking. Smart Learning Environments, 11(1), Article 44. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40561-024-00333-6
Paper and Poster Presentations
A. Kohmer, V. Klose, M. Weber (2025, Sep 11) Medical Students’ Critical Internet Search - An Eye Tracking Study [Poster Presentation]. Presentation at the Joint international meeting IUPS & Europhysiology. Frankfurt, Germany.
Maur, A., Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia, O., Martin de los Santos Kleinz, L., Nagel, M., & Fischer, J. (2025, April 23). Assessing critical online reasoning skills: Latent trajectories among young professionals in medicine, law, and teaching [Paper presentation]. Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (AERA), Denver, CO, USA.
Ruf, V., Kohmer, A., Dinc, Y., Weber, M., Klose, V., Kunz, A.-K., Maur, A., Kuhn, J., & Küchemann, S. (2025). Machine-learning-based prediction of critical online reasoning skills via gaze data [Conference presentation]. ESERA 2025, Copenhagen, Denmark.
Kohmer, A., Weber, M., Klose, V., Maur, A., Kunz, A.-K., Dinc, Y., Ruf, V., & Küchemann, S. (2025). Critical Online Reasoning-Prozesse bei generischen Aufgaben: Einblicke in leistungsstarkes und leistungsschwaches Verhalten mittels Eye-Tracking [Symposium presentation]. GEBF Annual Meeting, Mannheim, Germany.
Kohmer, A., Klose, V., & Weber, M. (2024, August 8). Aufgabenlösungsprozesse und –strategien beim Critical Online Reasoning von Medizinstudierenden – eine Eye-Tracking Studie [Symposium presentation]. GMA Annual Meeting, Fribourg, Switzerland.
Küchemann, S., et al. (2024, April 13). How to use ChatGPT: Strategies to learn with large language models in physics education [Symposium presentation]. American Educational Research Association (AERA) Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
Maur, A., Zlatkin-Troitschanskaia, O., Martin de los Santos, L., Shenavai, K., Fischer, J., Nagel, M.-T., & Schmidt, S. (2024, April 13). A performance and response process data triangulation to identify online reasoning patterns among graduates [Symposium presentation]. American Educational Research Association (AERA) Annual Meeting, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA.
Kohmer, A., Klose, V., Nagel, M.-T., Fischer, J., & Martin de los Santos Kleinz, L. (2023, November). Effects of digital training on critical online reasoning among young professionals in medicine: A pre–post study [Paper presentation]. WERA Focal Meeting 2023, Singapore.
Brückner, S., Küchemann, S., Weber, M., & Klose, V. (2023, September 15). Dispositionen, Strategien und Erfolg von Hochschulstudierenden im Umgang mit Online-Informationen – Projekt C07 [Symposium presentation]. Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Empirische Pädagogische Forschung (AEPF) Conference, Potsdam, Germany.