Building e-based literacy for vocational education and training students

The use of the Internet within educational settings means that the term 'literacy' must be broadened to encompass new skills and reflect the merging of old and new literacy. For practitioners the challenge lies in making new media meaningful and empowering for students. Whilst interacting with hypertext has received much attention over the last two decades, little research has focused on comprehending in the hypertext context. This study investigated and compared the effectiveness of metacognitive reading comprehension strategies training on students' comprehension when reading hypertexts with linear structure containing text, picture or audio links. It was predicted that training students to monitor their comprehension would result in enhanced reading comprehension for a hypertext. In order to verify the hypothesis for the study, pretest, three training sessions and post-tests were conducted with the first year Diploma students studying within the Department of Horticulture and Environmental Science. The results indicated that training to apply metacognitive strategies enhanced comprehension in the hypertext context.