This project studied the process-based assessment of multiple documents comprehension (Multiple Documents Literacy).

In order to cope with the demands of their studies, university students of all subjects have to be able to familiarize with different topics and find out important information in a self-regulated way. In the context of university learning, they are usually confronted with multiple sources and (text) documents that might provide redundant and complementary but also conflicting information. These demands comprise more than comprehension of single texts as information of multiple sources needs to be related to and integrated with each other. Previous research indicates that students often fail to integrate information from multiple documents and sources appropriately.

In this project, a computer-based instrument for assessing university students’ competence of multiple documents comprehension (multiple documents literacy, MDL) was developed and in part validated. Especially, with a focus on additional process-based measures. A process-based measures was used 1) as additional diagnostic information and 2) in order to identify strategies of processing multiple documents and to test theories of multiple documents comprehension.