Learning and Individual Differences 31 (2014) 1120

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Learning and Individual Differences

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/lindif

Incremental theories of intelligence predict multiple

document comprehension
Jason L.G. Braasch a,b, Ivar Brten a,, Helge I. Strms a, istein Anmarkrud a
a
University of Oslo, Norway
b
University of Memphis, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: This study examined implicit theories of intelligence as predictors of multiple document comprehension in a
Received 12 April 2013 sample of 59 Norwegian upper-secondary school students. In four multiple regression analyses with multiple
Received in revised form 6 November 2013 document comprehension indicated by students' inclusion of scientic concepts in their essays, discrimination
Accepted 25 December 2013
between more and less useful documents given the reading task, consideration of document trustworthiness
as a basis for making those discriminations, and ability to draw inferences across documents as outcome mea-
Keywords:
Implicit theories of intelligence
sures, beliefs in intelligence as a malleable, increasable quality emerged as a unique positive predictor after con-
Multiple document comprehension trolling for word recognition, prior knowledge, and working memory. However, beliefs in intelligence as a xed,
Source evaluation unchangeable quantity did not emerge as a unique negative predictor. The ndings indicate that the benets of
Intertextual inferences endorsing an incremental theory of intelligence may be more pronounced than the costs of endorsing an entity
theory of intelligence in complex reading task contexts.
2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Stadtler & Bromme, 2008). Moreover, if readers do not strategically

Many reading researchers contend that the 21st century information
age has been a kind of game changer for comprehension, bringing
about not only new affordances but also new concerns (Alexander,
2012; Brand-Gruwel & Stadtler, 2011; Britt & Gabrys, 2002; Leu, Kinzer,
Coiro, Castek, & Henry, 2013). On one hand, readers can rapidly, almost
instantaneously, access a wide range of up-to-date information, partic-
ularly when retrieving documents via Internet search engines. On the
other hand, such access requires additional competencies, especially in
considering the ease of publishing in the current information age. In
this sense, readers should be more vigilant about the nature of docu-
ments as socially constructed artifacts (written by a particular author,
in support of a particular agenda, for a particular publication venue, at
a particular point in time, and so forth) (Britt, Rouet, & Braasch, 2013).
In addition, comprehension often requires that readers integrate con-
tent information germane to their research question that is distributed
across multiple documents (Aferbach & Cho, 2009; Goldman,
Braasch, Wiley, Graesser, & Brodowinska, 2012). Taken together,
readers must restrict their processing towards reliable, higher quality
information to successfully comprehend. It seems reasonable to assume
that, if people do not employ critical reading strategies to differentiate
the quality and reliability of the information they read, they may expe-
rience an overload of information, or even inappropriately integrate
both accurate and inaccurate information (Graesser et al., 2007;
Corresponding author at: Department of Educational Research, University of Oslo, P.O.
Box 1092, Blindern, N-0317 Oslo, Norway. Tel.: +47 22 85 52 82; fax: +47 22 85 42 50.
E-mail address: ivar.braten@ped.uio.no (I. Brten).
infer relationships between concepts found within various documents,
their resultant understandings may involve a less coherent mixture of
unconnected facts and concepts (Goldman, 2004).
Research to date has highlighted that a number of cognitive variables
may be associated with evaluation and integration processes (Banas &
Sanchez, 2012; Brten, Anmarkrud, Brandmo, & Strms, 2014; Brten,
Ferguson, Anmarkrud, & Strms, 2013; Brten, Strms, & Salmern,
2011). However, research on psychosocial factors is surprisingly scant.
In the current article, we posited that readers' implicit beliefs about the
nature of intelligence whether they believe that intelligence is a xed
and stable characteristic versus malleable and within their control to
exibly develop might predict the extent to which they will employ
strategies to evaluate source features and integrate content information
in a multiple document context independent of several cognitive indi-
vidual difference factors.
Classic and recent empirical research ndings support that source
evaluation and content integration are both crucial components of mul-
tiple document comprehension (Brten, Strms, & Britt, 2009; Britt,
Perfetti, Sandak, & Rouet, 1999; Goldman et al., 2012; Rouet, Britt,
Mason, & Perfetti, 1996; Wiley et al., 2009; Wineburg, 1991). Brten
et al. (2009) demonstrated that post-reading trust evaluations on reli-
able documents and considerations of source features in making these
trust decisions independently predicted multiple document compre-
hension, after controlling for readers' prior topic knowledge. Recent
studies using verbal protocols also demonstrate that strategies focused
on differentiating more versus less useful documents during reading
and using trustworthiness criteria when doing so relate to better post-
reading multiple document comprehension. For example, Anmarkrud,

1041-6080/$ see front matter 2013 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lindif.2013.12.012
12 J.L.G. Braasch et al. / Learning and Individual Differences 31 (2014) 1120
Brten, and Strms (in press) demonstrated relationships between
evaluations of information sources produced during reading and argu-
mentation sophistication and source usage in post-reading essays. Sim-
ilarly, Goldman et al. (2012) contrasted the kinds of processing that
better and poorer learners displayed during reading. Findings suggested
that better learners were more likely to go beyond content analyses to
evaluate the trustworthiness of the sources of documents compared
with poorer learners. Instead, poorer learners spent more time reading
unreliable documents and were more likely to include erroneous con-
cepts in post-reading essays. Thus, there is a growing body of evidence
that source evaluation strategies support the construction of accurate
understandings from multiple documents.
Integration of higher quality content information both within single
documents and across multiple documents also appears to promote
successful comprehension. In Brten and Strms (2011), college stu-
dent readers' identication with cross-text elaboration strategies on a
post-reading survey positively predicted their intertextual comprehen-
sion, a measure of the inferred connections made across the documents.
Wolfe and Goldman (2005) showed strong relationships between ado-
lescents' self-explanation strategies during reading the inferred con-
nections they made both within and across multiple history texts
and their subsequent reasoning performance about the texts' topic.
Using longer, more diverse documents, Goldman et al. (2012) demon-
strated that more successful college student learners constructed accurate
and coherent representations because they employed self-explanation
strategies in response to information germane to understanding the sci-
entic topic. Poorer learners displayed less evidence of self-explanation
strategies overall, and appeared to give equal weight to more and less
reliable information when they did. Thus, inferring relationships
among concepts also appears to support learning from multiple
documents.
1.1. Cognitive individual differences that predict multiple document
comprehension
Empirical research demonstrates that a number of cognitive vari-
ables contribute to the facets of multiple document comprehension
outlined above. Research has investigated three cognitive variables in
particular word recognition, prior knowledge, and working memory
either as variables of interest or as control variables. For example, many
empirical studies of multiple document comprehension control for
prior knowledge when judging whether additional variables explain
unique variance in comprehension performance. Even with additional
variables included in a model, prior topic knowledge often remains a sig-
nicant and substantial predictor of multiple document comprehension
(Brten et al., 2009, 2014; Strms, Brten, & Samuelstuen, 2008).
Moreover, Brten et al. (2013) investigated the contribution of individual
differences in word recognition skill for multiple document comprehen-
sion. As has been shown in prior research focusing on the comprehension
of single texts (Andreassen & Brten, 2010; Cunningham, Stanovich, &
Wilson, 1990; Samuelstuen & Brten, 2005; Stanovich, Cunningham, &
Feeman, 1984), word recognition was a unique predictor of multiple doc-
ument comprehension among lower-secondary school students. Finally,
Banas and Sanchez (2012) demonstrated that individual differences in
working memory capacity uniquely inuenced learning of implicit rela-
tionships underlying textual materials distributed across multiple web
pages.
Obviously, not all individual reader characteristics of importance are
cognitive in nature. Other research has demonstrated that psychosocial
factors, such as personality traits or dispositions, can strongly inuence
individuals' propensities to expend efforts towards achievement and
performance in a number of contexts and domains. In the current
work, we used the cognitive individual difference factors mentioned
above as control variables to rule out plausible alternative explanations
that they produced the effects, as opposed to the personality predictor
of focal interest in this article: readers' implicit theories of intelligence.
1.2. Implicit theories of intelligence predict performance
Seminal work by Dweck and colleagues (Blackwell, Trzesniewski, &
Dweck, 2007; Dweck, 1999; Dweck & Master, 2008; Hong, Chiu, Dweck,
Lin, & Wan, 1999) has related learners' implicit beliefs about the nature
of intelligence to their approaches and ultimate success in intellectually
demanding tasks (e.g., acquiring new knowledge and skills). Some
learners hold beliefs that intelligence is a xed, relatively stable charac-
teristic or quantity that is out of their control. Learners who identify
with these beliefs are often described as holding entity theories of in-
telligence. Others believe that intelligence is malleable, a quality that is
within their control to exibly develop and change. Accordingly,
learners who identify with these beliefs are often described as holding
incremental theories of intelligence.
A large body of research has established relationships between stu-
dents' implicit theories of intelligence and their achievement in various
learning contexts (Blackwell et al., 2007; Dupeyrat & Marin, 2005;
Faria & Fontaine, 1997; Greene, Costa, Robertson, Pan, & Deekens,
2010; Henderson & Dweck, 1990; Stipek & Gralinski, 1996). For exam-
ple, Henderson and Dweck (1990), after controlling for prior achieve-
ment, found that adolescents endorsing more of an incremental
theory of intelligence earned signicantly higher grades in the rst
year of junior high school than did those endorsing more of an entity
theory. Experimental research supports the relationships established
through correlational work. That is, interventions focusing on the acqui-
sition of incremental theories signicantly increased adolescents'
achievement test scores (Good, Aronson, & Inzlicht, 2003) and college
students' grades (Aronson, Fried, & Good, 2002) relative to controls.
Several empirical reports indicate that theories of intelligence orient
differently towards strategic processes during learning, which contrib-
utes to ultimate success (Blackwell et al., 2007; Dupeyrat & Marin,
2005; Hong et al., 1999; Rhodewalt, 1994; Robins & Pals, 2002).
Rhodewalt (1994) demonstrated that individuals holding entity theo-
ries were more likely to self-handicap, withdrawing effort or procras-
tinating within challenging learning contexts relative to those holding
incremental theories. Hong et al. (1999) compared entity and incre-
mental theorists' responses to setbacks during learning. Incremental
theorists were more likely to modify their strategies by taking remedial
action after having received negative feedback compared to entity the-
orists. Similarly, Blackwell et al. (2007) demonstrated that junior high
school students holding incremental theories were more likely to re-
spond to failures by exibly seeking out new learning and strategies
compared to entity theorists and, as a result, increased their achieve-
ment. In the same vein, Robins and Pals (2002) showed that incremen-
tal theorists displayed a greater evidence of mastery-oriented strategies
including effort escalation. In contrast, entity theorists blamed their fail-
ure on low ability, and gave up or perseverated on disadvantageous
strategies in challenging learning contexts.
Thus, research suggests that adaptive strategy use in challenging
task contexts something that incremental theorists do more often
supports learning and achievement. Moreover, withdrawing cognitive
effort or perseverating on futile strategies in response to difculties
something that is more common for entity theorists proves detrimen-
tal for learning and achievement. Comprehending multiple documents
in the current information age can pose quite a challenge for high school
and college students for several reasons (Britt & Aglinskas, 2002;
Goldman et al., 2012; Wiley et al., 2009). First, complex conceptual rela-
tionships within single texts are often left implicit, requiring that
readers strategically elaborate information to establish coherence (Chi,
2000; McNamara, Kintsch, Songer, & Kintsch, 1996). Second, documents
are seldom written for the student's exact inquiry purpose. That is,
readers must select and re-purpose concepts from single documents
and infer connections across multiple documents that are otherwise un-
certain. Finally, document authors' motives are not always transparent,
with documents often originating from unknown or questionable
sources that may vary in expertise on the topic, biases, and so forth.
 J.L.G. Braasch et al. / Learning and Individual Differences 31 (2014) 1120
Taken together, a multiple document context presupposes that readers
move beyond simply grasping the content information in each text.
They must also strategically construct links among the key concepts
presented by different documents, and between each key concept and
the information source(s) conveying them (Britt & Rouet, 2012).
Given prior research on implicit theories of intelligence (see above), it
is reasonable to assume that this individual difference factor may also
play a role in the challenging reading-task context of multiple document
comprehension by promoting or constraining strategic processing of
multiple, variably-reliable documents. Thus, such a reading-task con-
text might be a welcome challenge for incremental theorists leading
to their exible use of reading strategies (e.g., evaluating source infor-
mation, making inferences by combining information across docu-
ments). At the same time, a multiple document comprehension
context might tap into entity theorists' maladaptive strategies (e.g.,
perseverating on content at the expense of source evaluation, locally
processing each text without concern for inferred relationships across
texts). To explore this in the current work, we related secondary school
students' scores on measures of implicit theories of intelligence to their
evaluation and comprehension performance after reading complex,
variably-reliable documents on a scientic issue.
1.3. The present study
The current work extends investigations of the general detriments of
holding entity theories of intelligence and the general benets of hold-
ing incremental theories of intelligence. Whereas previous work has fo-
cused on longer-term, macro-level learning and course achievement,
we investigate whether these theories are functional in more micro-
level multiple document comprehension contexts. Do beliefs that intel-
ligence is xed confer costs for multiple document comprehension, in
terms of reducing readers' use of evaluation and integration strategies
when reading multiple documents? Do beliefs that intelligence is mal-
leable, something that can be modied by using a host of appropriate
strategies, benet multiple document evaluation and integration?
These central research questions were addressed in the current work.
We investigated costs and benets using four measures frequently
viewed as indications of successful multiple document evaluation and
comprehension. These included the number of concepts from higher-
quality documents that were retained and included in student-
generated essays, propensities to differentiate between more and less
useful documents, critical considerations of trustworthiness in doing
so, and generation of cross-document inferences as a measure of con-
ceptual integration. On the basis of theoretical assumptions and previ-
ous ndings concerning the inuences of implicit theories of
intelligence on performance outlined above, we expected that entity
theories of intelligence would negatively predict multiple document
evaluation and comprehension, while incremental theories would dis-
play positive prediction.
2. Method
2.1. Participants
Participants were 59 students1 (M age = 17.96, SD = 0.35; 48% fe-
male) completing college preparatory courses at a public upper-
secondary school in southeast Norway. The sample was relatively
1
Seventy-four students from three classrooms took part in a control condition within a
larger intervention study described in Braasch et al. (2013). Of those students, 59 were
present in two sessions and completed all individual difference, evaluation, and compre-
hension measures included in the current study. There is no reason to believe that they dif-
fered in any particular way from the 15 students that were not included in this study
because they did not produce a complete data set due to absences or partial participation.
13
homogeneous (i.e., middle class) with respect to socioeconomic status.
Most (77%) were native-born Norwegians who learned Norwegian as
a rst language. The remaining students were raised in Norway in bilin-
gual households.
2.2. Materials
2.2.1. Individual differences
2.2.1.1. Word recognition. Strms, Hagtvet, Lyster, and Rygvold's (1997)
assessment of word recognition skill presented 360 words written in 30
rows. In every row, four word clusters of three high-frequency words
were printed without spaces (e.g., stopsleepyellow). Students indicated
as many words as possible for 3 min by drawing vertical lines between
the words, with the number of correct word clusters used as an index of
word recognition skill. Maximum score was 120. In the present sample,
the reliability estimate (Cronbach's ) for scores on this measure was
.93.
Please note that reading researchers who have studied individual
differences in word recognition skills in relation to comprehension of
text (e.g., Bell & Perfetti, 1994; Cunningham et al., 1990) have demon-
strated that word recognition may be related to text comprehension
even in adults and, moreover, that it may be an independent predictor
(Stanovich, 2000). For example, Cunningham et al. showed that word
recognition skills accounted for signicant additional variance in the
text comprehension of adult college readers even after measures of gen-
eral intelligence, listening comprehension, sentence memory, and vo-
cabulary were entered into a regression equation.
2.2.1.2. Prior knowledge. Ten open-ended questions assessed pre-
reading knowledge of the central concepts underlying weather sys-
tems discussed in the documents (e.g., How are rain clouds formed?).
A preliminary version of the measure was constructed in consultation
with an earth scientist with expertise on the topic. Participants re-
ceived 2 points if a response reected complete, accurate understand-
ing, 1 point if it was accurate yet incomplete, and 0 for an incorrect
response or blank. Thus, prior knowledge scores reected 20 possible
points. A Cohen's Kappa interrater reliability score of .82 for 25% of
the larger sample of Braasch, Brten, Strms, Anmarkrud, and
Ferguson (2013) was obtained. Disagreements were resolved in discus-
sion; one rater scored the remaining participants. Cronbach's for the
sample was .76.
2.2.1.3. Working memory. Working memory capacity was assessed
using an adaptation of Swanson and Trahan's (1992) Working Mem-
ory Span Task, which was derived from Daneman and Carpenter's
(1980) original Reading Span Test. Twelve sets of unrelated
sentences were read aloud with a 2-s interval between each sen-
tence. Sets gradually increased from two to ve sentences. For each
set, participants were tasked to simultaneously a) comprehend the
sentences well enough to answer a comprehension question about
an unknown sentence after reading was completed, and b) remem-
ber the nal words from each of the sentences. After writing a re-
sponse to the comprehension question, participants recalled the
sentences' nal words. For each set, participants received one point
for correct comprehension response and one additional point for
each of the nal words recalled. Because working memory refers to
a cognitive system involved in simultaneous processing and storing
of information (Baddeley, 1990), no points were received for a set
if the comprehension response was incorrect. In this way, we en-
sured that participants had comprehended (i.e., processed) the
sentences and not only treated the task as one of verbal memory
for the nal words. Maximum score was 54. Cronbach's was .81.
2.2.1.4. Implicit theories of intelligence. A Norwegian version of Dweck's
(1999) Theories of Intelligence Scale was used (Brten & Strms,
14 J.L.G. Braasch et al. / Learning and Individual Differences 31 (2014) 1120
2004). Four items assessed the degree to which students identied with
an entity theory of intelligence reecting a belief that intelligence is a
xed trait, a personal attribute or quantity that cannot be changed
(e.g., You have a certain amount of intelligence, and you can't really
do much to change it). Four additional items assessed the degree to
which students identied with an incremental theory of intelligence
reecting a belief that intelligence is malleable, that is, that individuals
can become more intelligent through their efforts (e.g., You can always
substantially change how intelligent you are). Entity and incremental
items were presented in a mixed order; participants rated agreement
with each statement on a 6-point scale (1 = strongly disagree, 6 =
strongly agree). Cronbach's reliabilities were .84 for entity items and
.89 for incremental items.
2.2.2. Documents
The topic was the typical weather patterns across the Pacic Ocean
and El Nio's disruption of them. The rst author identied 30 core con-
cepts underlying typical and El Nio-related weather patterns in con-
sultation with an earth scientist with expertise on the El Nio weather
phenomenon (Braasch & Goldman, 2010). The set of concepts, shown
in Appendix A, guided the development of three more useful docu-
ments that were consistent with current scientic thinking and evi-
dence. Appendix B provides a brief description of the source features
and content information in each of the more useful documents.
To ensure that our document set closely mirrors the kinds of diverse
information sources that students might encounter when reading mul-
tiple documents, three less useful documents were also designed and
presented. All were based on authentic yet unsubstantiated, less reliable
accounts found on the Internet (see brief descriptions of each
document's source features and content information in Appendix B).
Across the three less useful documents, a total of eight erroneous con-
cepts were reported. We note that, with authentic documents, useful-
ness, reliability, and accuracy are all inextricably correlated.
Documents containing accurate information on a topic conveyed by re-
liable sources will necessarily provide the most useful information for
answering an inquiry question. The converse is also true: Inaccurate in-
formation conveyed by questionable or unreliable sources will neces-
sarily be the least useful in an inquiry context.
To conrm a priori distinctions of the usefulness of the documents,
we tasked six multiple document reading experts to independently
read then rank-order all six documents using the same prompt that
was provided for the participating students (see below). Average expert
ranks for the three more useful documents, that is, for the textbook ex-
cerpt (M = 2.17, SD = 0.98), the Illustrated Science article (M = 1.83,
SD = 0.75), and the forskning.no popular science article (M = 2.00,
SD = 0.89), were all approximately 2 (with 1 being the most useful
designation and 6 being the least). Average expert ranks for the three
less useful documents, that is for the environmental blog entry
(M = 4.67, SD = 0.51), the political commentary article (M = 4.33,
SD = 0.52), and the astrological newsletter (M = 6.00, SD = 0.00),
were considerably higher. Thus, the six documents represented a
range of usefulness for answering the focal inquiry question, with ex-
perts corroborating a priori distinctions.
For all documents, a bolded title (containing the key words typical
weather patterns or El Nio) was followed by the source feature informa-
tion (author, type, venue, publication date), which was in turn followed
by the text's content information. As an indication of text difculty, we
computed readability scores for each of the six documents based on the
formula proposed by Bjrnsson (1968), which is based on word length
and sentence length. When using this formula, readability scores nor-
mally range from 20 (very easy text) to 60 (very difcult text). The
mean readability score of the three more useful documents was 50.0
and the mean readability score of the three less useful documents was
44.3. According to readability standards presented by Bjrnsson
(1983), all documents could be described as average to difcult texts
typical of factual prose.
2.2.3. Post-reading materials and scoring
2.2.3.1. Essay task. Explain the causes of the typical weather patterns in
the Pacic Ocean and the processes that make El Nio change these
weather patterns was printed at the top of a sheet of paper. Two inde-
pendent judges used the 30-concept scoring rubric in Appendix A for
25% of the larger study's essay responses. Interrater agreement (Cohen's
Kappa) was .80, and all disagreements were resolved in discussion. One
judge scored the remaining essays.
2.2.3.2. Rank-order and justication tasks. You are now going to rank-
order the texts from most (1) to least useful (6) for understanding
the El Nio weather phenomenon was printed at the top of another
sheet of paper. The documents' titles and source features were then
presented with blank spaces to write the ranks. Below you are
going to explain why you assigned the texts the ranks that you
assigned to them. Provide as much detail as you can in your explana-
tion was written on a second page. The remainder of the worksheet
presented headings (Rank 1 reason, Rank 2 reason, and so forth)
with blank lines. Participants may consider a document's usefulness
using a variety of different criteria based on their interpretation. Like
Barzilai and Zohar (2012), we used a general usefulness prompt to in-
vestigate to which extent students raised trustworthiness issues in
their ranking justications spontaneously, that is, without a direct
prompt to do so. Evaluating usefulness in light of trustworthiness is
typically not done with less successful students, but when it occurs
spontaneously it facilitates multiple document comprehension as is
more typically the case for good students and experts (Goldman
et al., 2012; Wineburg, 1991).
To represent students' abilities to discriminate among diverse docu-
ments, several multiple document researchers have relied upon ranking
discrimination scores (Braasch et al., 2009; Wiley et al., 2009). In align-
ment with this work, we computed a difference score for each student
by subtracting their average rankings for the three more useful from
their average rankings for the three less useful documents. As such,
higher positive ranking discrimination scores reected better differenti-
ation; ranking discrimination scores closer to 1 signied a lack of
discrimination.
Rank-order justications were coded for the presence of several
types of content-based justications that fall outside the scope of the
current work (see Braasch et al., 2013, for the complete set of catego-
ries). For example, a statement like I ranked this document third be-
cause the title interested me received a coding of interest; a sentence
like I ranked this last because it was complicated received a code for
comprehensibility. We additionally coded for mentions of the informa-
tion sources (author, publication, venue, type, or date). For example, a
statement such as I ranked this fourth because it was published in
2002 received a code of publication date. Of interest for the current
work, we coded each justication for an indication of a more critical re-
liability assessment. These took many forms. Positive trustworthiness
assessments included mentions of trustworthiness or reliability, or
whether the information had been quality-checked or reviewed by
experts prior to publication, to name a few. Negative assessments men-
tioned a lack of trustworthiness or reliability, biases to persuade or pro-
mote the author's case, or mentions of subjectivity or one-sidedness.
Each justication entry was coded for assessment of the trustworthiness
of the document for that particular rank-order decision. Thus, trustwor-
thiness mention scores were out of six. Two independent judges used
the various coding categories described in Braasch et al. (2013) to
score a random selection of 25% of the justication protocols. The
Cohen's Kappa agreement for all categories was .75. All disagreements
were resolved in discussion between the two raters. One judge scored
the remaining participants.
2.2.3.3. Intertextual inference verication task (IIVT). Previous research
has demonstrated that intertextual verication tasks provide a fruitful
 J.L.G. Braasch et al. / Learning and Individual Differences 31 (2014) 1120
way to measure the inferred connections that readers make among con-
cepts distributed across multiple documents (Brten et al., 2009;
Strms et al., 2008). In alignment with the previous research, we creat-
ed a verication task to measure the degree to which students could
make inferences by combining information from the more useful docu-
ments that we provided. Please note, however, that the IIVT was created
for this particular research and has not been used in any previous stud-
ies. Twenty sentences (7 valid, 13 invalid inferences) were constructed
such that none could be answered correctly by judging the validity of
only one piece of information at a time, but rather involved cross-
textual inferences about information from at least 2 of the 3 more useful
documents. Thus, readers had to consider the whole, integrated mean-
ing of each sentence to decide whether it was a valid or an invalid infer-
ence. Appendix C provides illustrative IIVT examples documenting the
concepts that were covered for each item, the texts from which the con-
cepts could be gleaned, and explanations concerning the connections
among the concepts that one would have to make to respond correctly.
Performance scores reected the number of correct inference distinc-
tions out of 20 items. Cronbach's was .64.
While the reliability estimate of the IIVT was lower than desirable, it
was comparable to those obtained in other studies using similar tasks
(Brten et al., 2009; Brten & Strms, 2010; Salmern, Gil Brten &
Strms, 2010). Presumably, the somewhat low reliability of the IIVT
was related to the relatively short length of the scale. Thus, Royer,
Carlo, Dufresne, and Mestre (1996) suggested that to obtain a really
high reliability estimate, a verication task might have to include almost
100 items, which was not feasible given the time available for data col-
lection in this study.
2.3. Procedure
2.3.1. Day 1: Assessing reader characteristics
Participants were rst group-administered the word recognition
(5 min) and working memory measures (20 min). Then, for 25 min
they independently completed the prior knowledge and implicit theo-
ries of intelligence assessments.
2.3.2. Day 2: Multiple document comprehension assessments
Eleven days later, participants were provided with a folder con-
taining the six documents, the essay response sheet, the rank-order
and justication tasks, and the IIVT. Students were told that the doc-
uments resulted from a Google search using the key words El Nio
changes typical weather in the Pacic Ocean. They were allotted
30 min of reading time to be able to explain the causes of the typical
weather patterns in the Pacic Ocean and the processes that make El
Nio change these weather patterns. Although the documents were
presented in counterbalanced orders, students could read and reread
any information that they felt would help them to answer the inquiry
question in any order.
After the reading time expired, students replaced the documents in
the folder. They then wrote their essays for up to 20 min without having
access to the documents. Students then replaced the essay response
sheets and took out the rank-order and justication evaluation tasks.
For 15 min, students rank-ordered the documents from most (1) to
least useful (6) for understanding the El Nio weather phenomenon
and provided justications for their rank-order assignments. After plac-
ing the rank-order and justication tasks back in their folders, they re-
moved the IIVT task. Instructions were to mark each test sentence
with a yes if the statement could be inferred by combining information
from one or more of the documents that were just read and no if it could
not. Twenty minutes were allotted for the IIVT.
It should be noted that the sequence of tasks was used to minimize
reactivity. That is, we intended that participants should write essays
based on the mental representations that they constructed during read-
ing without cues from source information (rank-order and justication
evaluation tasks) or concepts presented in the IIVT task.
15
3. Results
Descriptive statistics as well as zero-order correlations for all mea-
sured variables are reported in Table 1. To answer our research ques-
tions regarding the unique predictability of entity and incremental
theories of intelligence for aspects of multiple document comprehen-
sion, we computed four regression equations. Outcome measures
were students' inclusion of scientic concepts in their essays (i.e., num-
ber of scientic concepts), their abilities to discriminate amongst the
more and less useful documents (i.e., ranking discriminations), their
mentioning of trustworthiness issues in their ranking justications
(i.e., trustworthiness assessments), and their abilities to draw infer-
ences across documents (i.e., IIVT scores). In addition to using the two
theories of intelligence measures as predictors for each of these out-
comes, we included word recognition, prior knowledge, and working
memory to control for variance in the outcome measures due to these
individual difference measures.
Table 2 shows the results of the regression analyses for all four out-
come variables. The ve predictors together explained a statistically sig-
nicant amount of variance in all four outcome measures, with F(5,
52) = 6.46, p = .000 (R2 = .38) for the number of scientic concepts,
F(5, 52) = 4.17, p = .003 (R2 = .29) for the ranking discriminations,
F(5, 52) = 3.18, p = .014 (R2 = .23) for the trustworthiness assess-
ments, and F(5, 53) = 2.63, p = .034 (R2 = .20) for the IIVT. Moreover,
for the number of scientic concepts ( = .41, p = .012), for the trust-
worthiness assessments ( = .35, p = .037), and for the IIVT ( = .43,
p = .017), students' endorsement of an incremental theory of intelli-
gence was a unique positive predictor, while it for the ranking dis-
criminations did not quite reach a conventional level of statistical
signicance ( = .31, p = .055). In contrast, no statistically signicant
results were obtained for students' endorsement of an entity theory of
intelligence. Among the control variables, prior knowledge uniquely
predicted students' inclusion of scientic concepts in their essays
( = .57, p = .000) and trustworthiness assessments ( = .44,
p = .003), while working memory uniquely predicted students' abili-
ties to discriminate between more and less useful documents
( = .41, p = .003) as well as their abilities to draw inferences across
documents ( = .35, p = .015). Finally, word recognition was not a
unique predictor of any of the outcome measures at this educational
level.
4. Discussion
This study uniquely contributes to research on implicit theories of in-
telligence as well as on multiple document reading. To the best of our
knowledge, it is the rst study that examined the role of this individual
difference variable in the context of learning from multiple information
sources. Moreover, by including both entity and incremental views on
intelligence in the same regression equations and, at the same time, con-
trolling for several other reading-related variables, we were able to
probe the relative as well as the unique contribution of the two implicit
theories to multiple document evaluation and integration.
As expected, beliefs in intelligence as a malleable quality uniquely
and positively predicted performance for all outcome measures. Specif-
ically, the multiple regression analyses showed that students holding
such beliefs were more likely to include concepts from higher quality
documents in their essays, to discriminate between more and less use-
ful documents given the task, to consider the trustworthiness of the
documents as a basis for discrimination, and to construct deeper, inter-
textual understandings of the documents by drawing bridging infer-
ences between them. Presumably, in accordance with other work on
the role of students' implicit theories of intelligence in learning and per-
formance (e.g., Blackwell et al., 2007; Hong et al., 1999; Robins & Pals,
2002), beliefs in intelligence as a malleable quality facilitated students'
employment of strategies that help them meet the challenges of
comprehending multiple documents. Specically, incremental theorists
16 J.L.G. Braasch et al. / Learning and Individual Differences 31 (2014) 1120

Table 1
Descriptive statistics and zero-order correlations for all measured variables.

Variable 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

1. Word recognition
2. Prior knowledge .37
3. Working memory .25 .38
4. Entity theory .06 .13 .27
5. Incremental theory .23 .19 .21 .73
6. Number of science concepts .16 .55 .35 .09 .03
7. Ranking discriminations .07 .11 .25 .33 .34 .19
8. Trustworthiness assessments .24 .41 .16 .10 .19 .45 .36
9. Intertextual inferences .22 .08 .29 .02 .19 .30 .15 .23
M 55.62 6.18 20.87 4.61 2.68 3.80 1.22 1.19 10.23
SD 11.98 3.71 10.33 .94 1.02 4.34 1.85 1.53 3.45
Skewness .04 .29 .12 .52 .20 1.32 .87 1.61 .22
p b .05.
p b .01.
p b .001.

may have sustained their cognitive engagement in the face of uncertain
outcomes, if merely to take advantage of the opportunity to gain new
understandings (Dweck, 1999; Hong et al., 1999; Robins & Pals, 2002).
An incremental theory of intelligence may also involve greater cognitive
exibility (Dweck, 1999), which, according to cognitive exibility theo-
ry (Spiro, Coulson, Feltovich, & Anderson, 1994) may be needed to gain
rich and exible understandings of complex knowledge distributed
across multiple sources.
On the other hand, beliefs in intelligence as a xed, unchangeable
quantity did not emerge as a unique negative predictor, contrary to ex-
pectations. Thus, although prior research on implicit theories of intelli-
gence has indicated that entity theorists are prone towards disengaging
from tasks posing challenges and perseverating on inappropriate strate-
gies (Blackwell et al., 2007; Rhodewalt, 1994; Robins & Pals, 2002), com-
prehension costs were not apparent in this study. In the complex reading
task context that we created, the benets of endorsing an incremental
theory therefore seemed more pronounced than the costs of endorsing
an entity theory of intelligence. One possible reason for this might be
that an incremental theory and an entity theory are not located at the op-
posite ends of a single construct. This possibility is unlikely, however,
given that about 85% of students (later grade school through college)
have been shown to agree consistently with either an incremental theory
or with an entity theory and thus hold a clear theory about intelligence
(evenly split among the two theories) (Dweck, 2002; Dweck & Molden,
2005). Please also note that a strong negative correlation between the in-
cremental and entity theory scores in this and other research (e.g., Brten
& Strms, 2006) shows that there is a clear distinction between the two
implicit theories, in the sense that students who are high in incremental
beliefs are low in entity beliefs and vice versa. We would therefore sug-
gest that another, more likely, possibility is that students endorsing entity
theories did not perceive that the task of reading to learn from multiple
documents in this setting, without any real, public consequences for
them, posed enough of a risk of revealing that they were not endowed
with sufcient intelligence. This would reduce the saliency and function
of entity theories. However, the same task may have been enough of a
welcome challenge for students endorsing incremental theories. The op-
portunity to learn may have oriented them towards strategic processing
and possibly sustained engagement. Because the current information
age guarantees that readers will need to incorporate several kinds of
reading strategies when dealing with complex and variably-reliable doc-
uments, students' propensities to rise to such challenges might create
gaps in knowledge acquisition and integration between those who en-
dorse incremental and entity theories. Intriguing future research could
investigate longer-term benets of incremental theories of intelligence
when secondary school students must accrue knowledge from multiple
information sources over prolonged periods of time (e.g., over the course
of a semester).
Thus, while entity-oriented learners that are anxiously trying to
prove themselves (Molden & Dweck, 2006) may be strategically
handicapped when they perceive the stakes to be high for example
in a competitive setting where their performance relative to others
also becomes public the maladaptive strategic pattern found to char-
acterize entitists (Dweck & Leggett, 1988) may not bear out in lower
stakes testing environments like the one used in this study. On the
other hand, incremental-oriented learners that are excitingly exploring
new realms of knowledge (Molden & Dweck, 2006) may be concerned
with strategically mastering the materials whatever the stakes and
thus perceive the multiple document task context that we created as
an opportunity to gain new knowledge and experience. This implies
that our ndings may contribute to an understanding of each implicit
intelligence theory's functionality in lower stake testing environments,
with entity theories only detrimental in higher stake situations and in-
cremental theories benecial regardless of the stakes involved. Future
research in this area might experimentally manipulate the stakes

Table 2
Results of multiple regression analyses for variables predicting number of scientic concepts, ranking discriminations, trustworthiness assessments, and intertextual inferences.

Predictor Scientic concepts Ranking discriminations Trustworthiness assessments Intertextual inferences

B SE B B SE B B SE B B SE B

Word recognition .07 .05 .18 .03 .02 .17 .00 .02 .03 .01 .04 .02
Prior knowledge .67 .15 .57 .03 .07 .06 .18 .06 .44 .05 .14 .06
Working memory .08 .05 .19 .07 .02 .41 .01 .02 .06 .12 .05 .35
Entity theory 1.17 .77 .25 .47 .36 .23 .15 .30 .09 .90 .68 .25
Incremental theory 1.73 .73 .41 .55 .34 .31 .53 .29 .35 1.44 .66 .43
p b .05.
p b .01.
p b .001.
 J.L.G. Braasch et al. / Learning and Individual Differences 31 (2014) 1120 17

involved for example by putting more emphasis on competition and interaction effects between implicit theories of intelligence and the
publicity to investigate whether implicit theories of intelligence pro- other reading-related individual difference variables on multiple
vide different contributions to multiple document comprehension de- document evaluation and integration. Finally, because the correla-
pendent on the perceived stakes. On a related note, our ndings may tional data that we analyzed do not warrant conclusions regarding
also suggest that entity theories of intelligence are more culturally sen- causality, further experimental work is needed to more rmly estab-
sitive than incremental theories in the sense that the former operate lish causal relations between students' implicit theories of intelli-
less similarly and strongly across cultures than the latter. More speci- gence and aspects of their multiple document comprehension.
cally, in the context of the egalitarian Norwegian educational system, Despite such limitations, our ndings may suggest some important
with relatively little emphasis on competition and individual distinction implications not only for theory but also for educational practice. While
(Undheim, Nordvik, Gustafsson, & Undheim, 1995), the task that we cognitive variables have thus far taken the front seat in work on multiple
created may have been perceived as less challenging or threatening document comprehension, this study uniquely contributes to the litera-
than it would have been in a less egalitarian, more competitive system, ture by indicating that not only the cognitive but also the personality sys-
with the cost of endorsing an entity theory of intelligence therefore not tem of readers is involved in evaluating and learning from multiple
apparent on such a task in this particular context. More research is cer- information sources. Moreover, it indicates that personality in terms of
tainly warranted that investigates whether students perceive the stakes self-theories concerning readers' beliefs about their intelligence (Dweck,
involved in similar tasks differently across cultures, with a possible con- 2008; Dweck & Leggett, 1988; Molden & Dweck, 2006) plays a role in
sequence being that entity theories of intelligence contribute differently such complex reading-task contexts independent of cognitive variables.
to performance on similar tasks in different cultures. However, in addition to contributing to eshing out a more comprehen-
Of note is that the unique predictability of incremental beliefs about sive theory of individual differences that underlie performance on essen-
intelligence was observed when several well-established predictors of tial 21st century literacy tasks, our study may inform educators about
reading competence were simultaneously controlled for. With respect reader characteristics that may facilitate adaptive strategic processing of
to the control variables, prior knowledge and working memory were multiple documents. Importantly, these reader characteristics should
found to uniquely predict different important aspects of multiple docu- not be regarded as static (Dweck & Molden, 2005). To the contrary,
ment comprehension. It was not surprising that prior topic knowledge prior intervention work (Aronson et al., 2002; Blackwell et al., 2007;
predicted students' inclusion of scientic concepts in their essays. Howev- Good et al., 2003) has shown that students can be taught an incremental
er, prior knowledge was also the better predictor of students' trustworthi- theory of intelligence, with incremental messages conveyed during in-
ness assessments, suggesting that they used their knowledge of struction, in turn, improving student learning and performance. Future
conceptual content, rather than source information, when judging the work should therefore examine the extent to which teaching an incre-
trustworthiness of the documents (cf., Brten et al., 2011; Rouet et al., mental theory of intelligence and how to apply it to multiple document
1996). In contrast, working memory was the better predictor of students' reading may promote students' learning from heterogeneous textual
ability to discriminate between more and less useful documents as well materials.
their performance on the IIVT. The IIVT may have required working mem-
ory resources because successful performance involves not only compre- Appendix A. Core concepts in the domain and their distribution
hension of and memory for individual documents, but also constructions across the three more useful documents
of inferential links among them (Wiley, Grifn, & Thiede, 2005). An inter-
pretation of the unique predictability of working memory for ranking dis-
criminations is more speculative at present. It is important to revisit that
Textbook Magazine Research
the students did not have access to the full texts when ranking the useful-
excerpt article website
ness of the documents. Thus, when using document content to help de-
Typical weather pattern concepts
cide upon an order of usefulness, they would have to retrieve content
High air pressure in east
information from two or more documents from long-term memory to Low air pressure in west
compare and rank order them. Current characterizations of working Trade winds east to west
memory highlight its role in accessing and utilizing information from Water is dragged west
long-term memory during complex, attention-demanding tasks Sun heats water
Warm water bulge in western Pacic
(Baddeley, 2000), which may have supported rank-order performance Warm air temperatures
for these participants. Finally, although students' word recognition skill High levels of evaporation
has been shown to uniquely predict their learning from multiple docu- less dense, air rises
ments among younger students (Brten et al., 2013), one likely reason Cooling reduces moisture
Cloud formation
for the lack of contribution of word recognition in this study may be
Heavy rainfall in west
that most of the participants had reached a level so high that further im- Cool water upwelling in eastern Pacic
provement did not matter much in terms of performance (cf., Strms Cooler air temperatures
et al., 2008). Future work in this area could therefore supplement or re- Low levels of evaporation
place measures of word recognition skills with measures of reading com- Denser air does not rise
Less cloud formation
prehension when trying to isolate variance due to implicit theories of Lack of rainfall in east
intelligence. Walker circulation perpetuates patterns
Of course, our ndings are contextualized not only by the Norwe-
El Nio-related weather concepts
gian sample of secondary school students that participated but also
Pressure difference weakens
by the particular text materials and tasks that we presented to Trade winds relax
them. Future work examining the role of implicit theories of intelli- Warm water bulge is in east
gence in multiple document evaluation and integration should High evaporation
Warm moist air
therefore probe the generalizability of our ndings. For example, re-
Less dense, rises
search could include other student populations working with multi- Cloud formation
ple documents on other issues and demonstrating their competence Heavy rainfall in east
on other outcome measures. As indicated above, cross-cultural re- Cool water upwelling in west
search in this area is also warranted. Moreover, future work should Low evaporation
Lack of rainfall in west
use larger sample sizes, also allowing for the testing of possible
18 J.L.G. Braasch et al. / Learning and Individual Differences 31 (2014) 1120

Appendix B. A description of more and less useful documents' source features and content information

More useful documents Description of source features Description of content information

Typical weather patterns in the Pacic An excerpt from an upper secondary school geography textbook This document explains the relationships between atmospheric
Ocean: When the air meets the water 444 written by a science teacher published by a well-known processes and differences in oceanic temperatures, and that these
words publishing house in 2007 processes result in predictable weather patterns in the western and
eastern Pacic Ocean.
What causes typical weather patterns in the Popular science article for Illustrated Science magazine written by This document explains the reasons that the different ocean
Pacic Ocean and how do scientists predict a researcher (oceanographer) at an ocean research institute temperatures across the Pacic Ocean result in the typical weather
anomalies like El Nio? 565 words published in 2002 patterns in the western and eastern Pacic Ocean by informing on
chemical processes associated with the water cycle.
A world of change the El Nio weather A popular science article from an online research magazine The document explains that El Nio events are triggered when air
phenomenon 520 words published by a group of research and educational institutions pressure differentials decrease across the Pacic Ocean, causing
(www.forskning.no) written by a senior researcher at a anomalous weather patterns.
meteorological institute published in 2011

Less useful documents Description of source features Description of content information

El Nios on the rise We only have An environmental blog entry written by a freelance writer inThis document explains that El Nio events are becoming stronger
ourselves to blame!!! 566 words 2008 and more frequent over the past several decades because of
changes in the direction of global warming. It claims that increases
in global warming due to manmade causes have weakened the
typical relationships between air pressure and air movement,
thereby increasing the frequency of El Nio events. The document
makes inappropriate causal interpretations of computer simulation
data and uses anecdotal evidence.
Is global warming increasing the occurrences A commentary article from a Norwegian liberal daily newspaper This document also claims that El Nio events are becoming stronger
of El Nios? What we do and do not know written by a political editor in 2004 and more frequent over the past several decades, related to global
547 words warming. A computer simulation nding is used as support. Although
this article goes on to present some researchers' cautions against
conclusions based solely on computer simulation data (e.g., inaccu-
rate prediction), the author ultimately rejects the cautions outright.
Instead, she makes a call to arms for more serious environmental
regulations on the use of fossil fuels. Thus, there are implications that
her political agenda motivates what was presented.
El Nio comes from space, not humanity 521 A newsletter excerpt written by a global astrologer for his This document explains that weather anomalies such as El Nio
words personal website in 2011 events result from cosmic forces (e.g., the alignment of planetary
bodies). As such, this document is less useful due to an
inappropriate reasoning based on circumstantial, unscientic
evidence.

Appendix C. Example items from the intertextual inference verication task

Example IIVT items Concepts involved Texts conveying Explanation

these concepts

Droughts tend to occur in areas
experiencing lower evaporation.
Response YES
During an El Nio event, the relaxation
of the trade winds results in a rainy
season in the eastern Pacic Ocean.
Response YES
Within the Pacic Ocean, upwelling
occurs in regions with relatively lower
surface air pressure.
Response NO
Typically, the eastern Pacic experiences low levels More useful text 2 This is a valid inference because, during typical and El
of evaporation. Nio-related weather patterns, areas with lower
Typically, there is a lack of rainfall in the eastern More useful text 2 levels of evaporation experience a less rainfall and
Pacic. droughts (relative to regions of higher evaporation).
During El Nio, the western Pacic experiences More useful text 3
low levels of evaporation.
During El Nio, there is a lack of rainfall in the More useful text 3
western Pacic.
During El Nio, the trade winds relax. More useful text 3 This is a valid inference because a relaxation of the
Typically, there is a lack of rainfall in east. More useful text 1 and 2 trade winds would increase the amount of warm
water, evaporation, condensation, and ultimately the
During El Nio, there is heavy rainfall in east. More useful text 3 amount of rainfall in the eastern Pacic relative to
typically dry conditions.
Typically, the eastern Pacic has higher air More useful text 1 This is an invalid inference because, during both
pressure. typical and El Nio-related weather patterns, areas
Typically, upwelling occurs in the eastern More useful text 1 with higher air pressure experience upwelling.
Pacic.
During El Nio, air pressure increases in More useful text 2
western Pacic.
During El Nio, upwelling increases in western Pacic. More useful text 2
 J.L.G. Braasch et al. / Learning and Individual Differences 31 (2014) 1120
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