Scaffolding university students' epistemic cognition during multimodal multiple-document reading: The effects of the epistemic prompting and the automated reflection report

Abstract This study examined how the epistemic prompts designed to activate learners' epistemic cognition in sourcing affect their multimodal multiple-document reading (MMDR), considering learners' justification for knowing behaviors, prior knowledge, and gender. Participants were 48 university students, 28 females (58.3%), and 20 males (42.7%). Students were randomly assigned to an experimental group with epistemic-prompts that automatically generate a reflection report in addition to a note-taking function or a control group with a note-taking function only. Results showed that students relied primarily on YouTube videos for their MMDR with higher credibility ratings for the YouTube video than written texts. Besides, epistemic prompting, along with the automatically generated reflection report, enhanced students' scores on constructed-response items for the experimental group and helped them create a coherent mental representation of information from diverse multimodal sources beyond the effect of personal justification and multiple justifications. Implications of the study results are made to enhance students' epistemic cognition during their MMDR.