Strategic and self-regulated instruction in synthesis tasks in the university context

Introduction: The aim of the study was to improve student skills in writing good-quality synthesis texts through a strategic, self-regulated instruction program aimed at ensuring that students properly activated reading and writing strategies required by the synthesis task.

Methods: The sample consisted of 84 university students who were randomly assigned to experimental or control conditions. The experimental group received an instructional program based on the development and self-regulated implementation of reading and writing strategies for producing synthesis texts. The control group received a program involving metacognitive knowledge of various academic text types. Both programs involved eight 60-min sessions, taught by teachers in a compulsory degree subject. For the evaluations, students produced synthesis texts from different source texts. The syntheses were graded considering text product measures: information selection, idea connection, text organization, and holistic quality; and measures of reading (underlining and note-taking) and writing (planning and review) strategies.

Results: The results show that the experimental group exhibited greater improvements in synthesis quality and greater improvements in activation of information organization processes, note-taking while reading, and text planning.

Discussion: In conclusion, university students can, following implementation of a strategic instructional procedure in the context of a study plan, adapt and re-work their own reading and writing strategies and apply them in a self-regulated manner to synthesis tasks, improving text quality and some of the cognitive processes involved.