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Using Perusall to motivate students’ curriculum-based academic reading

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Abstract

Social annotation tools hold great potential in facilitating students’ academic reading by transforming solitary reading tasks into collaborative experience, but little is known about how social annotations can affect students’ academic reading motivation. This study examined the use of Perusall, a social annotation tool, among students in three university classes. It specifically explored how Perusall affected the students’ motivation for curriculum-based academic reading and what factors accounted for the changes in their reading motivation. Informed by Guthrie et al.'s (2011) Motivations for reading information books school questionnaire (MRIB-S) and motivation for reading information books non-school questionnaire (MRIB-N), we devised the Motivation for Curriculum-based Academic Reading (MCAR) questionnaire to examine the students’ pre-task and post-task reading motivation. We also created prompts for both the midterm and final written reflections to elicit the students’ perspectives on using Perusall for curriculum-based academic reading. The results revealed that social annotations enhanced the students’ reading motivation, particularly extrinsic motivation, and students showed stronger preference for reading academic texts online toward the end of the study. The changes in their motivation can be attributed to multiple opportunities that Perusall affords, including peer interaction/coaching, interaction between readers and texts, and ongoing automated grading. The students appreciated the transformational role of Perusall, reflected in simultaneity of reading and discussion, the affordance of equal/wider student participation, and collaborative reading of course contents. This study sheds light on the impact of social annotation tools on students’ collaborative relationships, the growth of online learning communities, and the improvement of students’ reading motivation.

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Correspondence to Mimi Li.

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This study has been approved by the IRB office of Georgia Southern University. That is, the appropriate ethical approval has been received and the study conforms to recognized standards.

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Appendices

Appendix A

Instructor-adjusted grading rubrics

Minimum requirements: 3 annotations for each reading assignment. (For these reading assignments, the instructor adjusted the Perusall grading components to allow students to earn full credit in different ways. Specific grading components are described below. For more details on how scoring works in Perusall, see https://www.perusall.com/hubfs/downloads/scoring-details.pdf.)

Annotation content component.

  • Annotation content score target: 70%

  • Do not allow responses for credit past the deadline

  • Do not score any late annotations

  • Maximum penalty for responses that are not distributed evenly throughout the content: 5%

Opening assignment component.

  • Opening assignment target: 30%

  • Opening assignment increment: 5%

Reading component.

  • Reading target: 30%

Active reading time component.

  • Active reading target: 30%

  • Active reading increment: 5%

Getting responses component.

  • Getting responses target: 30%

  • Getting responses increment: 1%

Upvoting component.

  • Upvoting target: 20%

  • Receiving upvotes increment: 2%

  • Upvoting increment: 1%

Appendix B

Motivation for curriculum-based academic reading (MCAR)

Intrinsic motivation:

  1. 1.

    I enjoy reading hard-copy academic texts.

  2. 2.

    I enjoy reading online/digital academic texts.

  3. 3.

    I read academic texts as much as I can.

  4. 4.

    I read academic texts because it is fun.

  5. 5.

    The academic texts required for my coursework are interesting.

    Extrinsic motivation:

  6. 6.

    I read academic texts (either hard-copy or online) for my coursework.

  7. 7.

    I finish reading assignments on time to get a good score.

  8. 8.

    My classmates value my thought about the academic texts that I read.

  9. 9.

    My teacher values my thought about the academic texts that I read.

  10. 10.

    I like to share what I learn from academic texts with others.

    Value:

  11. 11.

    I usually learn a lot from academic texts.

  12. 12.

    Understanding academic texts is very important to me.

  13. 13.

    I can use the knowledge that I learn from academic texts.

  14. 14.

    It is very important to me to be successful in reading academic texts.

  15. 15.

    Reading academic texts is more useful than most of the other academic activities (e.g., lectures, academic writing).

    Reading efficacy:

  16. 16.

    I can understand all the academic texts that I read.

  17. 17.

    I can explain the academic texts I have read to my classmates and others.

  18. 18.

    I can find essential ideas and key information in academic texts that I read.

  19. 19.

    I can understand how arguments are developed in the academic texts that I read.

  20. 20.

    I can correctly answer questions based on academic texts that I have read.

    Perceived difficulty/preference:

  21. 21.

    The academic texts required in my coursework are hard.

  22. 22.

    I find it difficult to read academic texts online.

  23. 23.

    I prefer reading hard-copy academic texts to online/digital academic texts.

Appendix C

Written reflection questions

The students are asked to complete two written reflection tasks (one at the midterm and the other at the final). The prompt questions are as follows.

Mid-term Reflection (Reflection Task #1).

  1. 1.

    Describe your experience of using Perusall to complete your reading assignments so far.

  2. 2.

    What do you like or dislike about Perusall? Why?

  3. 3.

    Has Perusall changed the way you read? If so, how?

  4. 4.

    Has Perusall changed your understanding of the purpose of reading? If so, how?

    ******************************************************************************

Final Reflection (Reflection Task #2).

  1. 1.

    How do you think reading and discussion through Perusall is similar to or different from more traditional forms of reading and discussion assignments, for example, reading assignments plus face-to-face classroom discussion or online discussion board assignments?

  2. 2.

    Do you think the automated scoring in Perusall is fair and adequate? How would you compare the automated scoring with the scoring done by an instructor?

  3. 3.

    For future students in this class, what suggestions do you have (both for using Perusall and other aspects of the class)?

Appendix D

SPSS results of the paired sample t test for questionnaire data.

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Li, M., Li, J. Using Perusall to motivate students’ curriculum-based academic reading. J. Comput. Educ. 10, 377–401 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40692-022-00234-y

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