Readers' Comprehension of New Text Formats. Part I. Empirical Evidence from Russian and Research Methodology Behind It

In this article, we review a range of Russian-language studies investigating readers’ interaction with new text formats. We identify the key problems preventing proper generalization of such research data. These include: (1) the absence of agreed terminology for describing texts of new formats shared by most researchers, and (2) the lack of consistency in theoretical approaches for describing cognitive mechanisms underpinning processing of these types of texts by readers. The following factors further complicate comparison and systematization of the data obtained by different research groups: (1) the lack of explicitly described theoretical bases of the hypotheses formulated by researchers, (2) the lack of consistency in describing the putative connections between such theoretical backgrounds and empirically tested hypotheses, (3) heterogeneity of methodological approaches, (4) insufficient, unequal or unbalanced sample sizes, (5) low reliability of statistical approaches and tools used for data analysis, as well as (6) research artefacts confounding the results.