In this experiment, we contrasted two instructions in which the focus of summary writing was varied. We predicted that students would better understand a scientific text when they learn to focus their summaries on the referential content rather than on the hierarchical structure of the text. In a 2 × 2 factorial experiment, 85 Grade-10 students…

Cognitive interest is a motivation to acquire information that is caused by a cognitive and emotional state of uncertainty about the meaning of a text. It can, therefore, be expected to increase if a text raises an issue in readers' mind without resolving it. In support of this expectation, the results of 3 experiments show that the readers'…