Special Interest Group 2:
Comprehension of Text and Graphics

• Home
• Impressions
• About
• Submissions
• Program
  • JURE workshops
  • Keynotes
  • Poster
• Important dates
• Committee
• Registration
• Contact information
• Venue

JURE workshops

There will be two workshops on August 25th, 2010 that are especially designed for doctoral students to enhance their ways of thinking about and researching learning with text and graphics, respectively. Participation in the workshops is free for registered conference members. If you want to participate in one of the workshops, please register by sending an email to SIG2-2010(aτ)iwm-kmrc.de with the following subject line: WORKSHOP: <NAME OF LECTURER OFFERING THE WORKSHOP (I.E. AINSWORTH OR SALMERON>. Please note that the workshops will be run in parallel, so you can participate only in one of the workshops.

Approaches to analysing graphical representations
Dr. Shaaron Ainsworth

Researchers from many different perspectives have tried to understand how graphical representations influence the process and outcomes of learning. In SIG 2 the dominant approach has tended to see graphical representations in terms of their cognitive (specifically memory) effects. The aim of this workshop is to consider a wider range of explanations that might be important including semiotic, cognitive, perceptual, affective, strategic, metacognitive, epistemological and rhetorical levels of analysis. Thus the aim is to find a more integrative account of learning with graphics. Some theoretical, methodological, and practical implications of this way of thinking about representations will be discussed. Participants are invited to bring some representations they would like to analyse. So workshops session will include both hands on analysis and design of evaluations as well as lecture presentations.

Natural language techniques for text comprehension analysis
Dr. Ladislao Salmerón

Recent advancements in computational linguistics include a series of natural language tools that provide researchers in the field of text comprehension with semi-automatic ways to analyze semantic parameters of the texts used in their research. These tools are particularly useful for rather long texts (> 200 words), for which a traditional propositional-analysis becomes an unpractical method. The semantic analyses serve a wide range of purposes, such as: prediction of text comprehensibility, analysis of the appropriateness of a text for a particular reader group, identification of text cohesion gaps, automatic score of students’ open-ended responses, prediction of students’ navigation in hypertext … The aim of this SIG 2 workshop is to introduce participants to these natural language tools, as a way to expand the possibilities of their current and future research in text comprehension involving long texts.