ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book details the psychology of comprehension; enhancing comprehension; and measuring comprehension. Psychological perspective address the types of representations that are encoded when people read and the various factors that influence their comprehension of what they read. On enhancing comprehension focus on advances in computational linguistics and educational technology to help students comprehend and learn. Measuring comprehension describe efforts to create assessments that are informed by theory and evidence, but often with a look and feel that distinguishes them from more traditional tests. Danielle McNamara and colleagues demonstrate the power of natural language processing (NLP) techniques to inform both psychological theories and educational interventions. Peter Hastings and colleagues describe computational approaches to identify the structure of texts, such as those conveyed by student essays on causal explanations.
