Related resources available at http://language.oakland.edu/nrc/2010 Exploring Comprehension Processes and Interactions Among Adolescents Reading Online to Solve Information Problems Julie Coiro, University of Rhode Island Lizabeth Guzniczak, Oakland University Jill Castek, University of California, Berkeley There is no doubt that new technologies are constantly changing the landscapes of reading and writing (Coiro, Knobel, Lankshear, & Leu, 2008; Dalton & Proctor, 2008). An ever-increasing amount of networked information relies on social interactions, transactions with complex and multiple texts, and critical literacy skills to comprehend informational text in online environments. Researchers in this study are interested in the nature of language, dialogue, and comprehension processes of adolescent readers who read on the Internet to solve information problems. This paper builds on work presented in 2009 that highlighted promising methodologies and software tools for collecting and analyzing video data in online reading research. This year, our research focused on two questions: (1) How can we build on previous knowledge of “offline constructively responsive reading strategies” and current studies of “online reading strategies” to construct and test a research-based coding scheme for qualifying strategy use in Internet reading contexts; and (2) How do readers construct and co-construct both meaning and solutions to online inquiry tasks as they, first work independently, and then as partners on two parallel reading tasks? This alternative format session highlights key findings from a mixed-method analysis of video data collected from four middle school students asked to read both independently and with a partner to solve a series of online reading tasks. These researcher-created problems provided an opportunity for students to research science and social studies content found online and draw conclusions to respond to a question that framed the task. One reading task was completed individually and, on a subsequent day, a second task was completed with a partner. Camtasia screen capture software (http://www.camtasia.com) was used to simultaneously record on-screen reading actions, audio recordings of participants’ verbal think- alouds, and verbal/non-verbal interactions. A frontal view of each reader was captured with a camera mounted on the computer. The average length of the individual reading sessions was 30 minutes, while the dyad reading sessions ranged from 35-40 minutes. At the end of each online reading session, students were asked to draw a conclusion about the information problem based on their reading and research. Online reading episodes were transcribed, coded, and analyzed using descriptive statistics and content analysis. To analyze the transcripts, an expanded coding scheme was developed based on Pressley & Afflerbach’s (1995) framework of constructively responsive reading comprehension strategy use. This newly constructed coding scheme incorporated offline and online reading comprehension processes drawn from relevant studies (e.g. Afflerbach & Cho, 2008, 2009; Coiro 2007; Coiro & Dobler, 2007; Pressley & Afflerbach, 1995; Schmar-Dobler, 2003; Zhang & Duke, 2008). This expanded coding scheme was applied to examine students’ comprehension processes as they worked individually (n=4) and in dyads (n=2). Then, we explored the use of a newly emerging framework for analyzing collaborative reading patterns on the Internet (see Kiili, Laurinen, Marttunen, and Leu, in process) to examine collaborative patterns of knowledge acquisition and meaning construction as students read in two dyadic pairs. Admittedly, our work is still at the beginning stages, but a series of interesting findings emerged from our study. First, we found that our expanded coding scheme of constructively responsive reading strategies successfully highlighted the nature of strategy use among three skilled readers while reading on the Internet. However, we also observed that this coding scheme presented challenges when trying to explain the nature of ineffective or less efficient strategy use among one reader who had difficulty completing the online reading tasks. In the future, we hope to test the use of this coding scheme across a larger population of readers while also considering ways to adapt the coding scheme to more appropriately reflect comprehension strategy use among less skilled online readers. Second, across our adolescent readers, we observed a diverse range of online comprehension strategies that emerged into unique individual reading profiles across the four readers. A comparison of descriptive statistics suggested that in the same tasks, one reader might best be characterized as “the aesthetic responder”; a second reader was best described as “the gatherer”; a third reader as “the