The Future of Education

Argumentative texts in Chilean elementary school textbooks have a complex structure, the premises that guarantee the logical connection between the main reason and the theses remain implicit (Guerra e Ibáñez, 2019). This constitutes a cognitive barrier that slows down processing and hinders deep comprehension (Malaia et al., 2014; Schwartz et al., 2018), and, therefore, learning through reading. It is hypothesized that the omission of these premises makes it difficult for readers to anticipate the thesis, which can directly impact their ability to analyze, evaluate, and construct a mental representation of the content of the arguments (Schwartz et al., 2018), skills that are fundamental to learning. This study uses a novel methodology in the field of education: eye tracking, which allows for real-time, high-precision observation of the cognitive processes involved in reading, which traditional methods cannot capture. 60 Chilean participants (6 - 8 grade) read short argumentative texts that manipulated the presence or absence of argumentative premises. The findings reveal that while the presence of premises benefits comprehension, they have a differentiated effect on late processing, which is linked to higher-order thinking skills. These results have a significant impact on educational practice and the design of learning materials: first, they suggest that relatively simple interventions, such as the strategic incorporation of premises in school texts, can significantly facilitate argumentative comprehension and learning from the text. Secondly, the incorporation of argumentative premises can also support the metacognitive processes necessary for critical argumentative reading. Finally, our results demonstrate the value of eye tracking for research in real school contexts.