Non-continuous texts are organized differently than continuous texts and so allow the reader to employ different strategies for entering and extracting information from them. On the surface, these texts appear to have many different organizational patterns or formats, ranging from tables and schedules to charts and graphs, and from maps to forms. However, the organizational pattern for these types of texts, which Mosenthal and Kirsch (1998) refer to as documents, is said to have one of four basic structures: a simple list; a combined list; an intersected list; and a nested list. Together, these four types of documents make up what they have called matrix documents, or non-continuous texts with clearly defined rows and columns. They are also closely related to other non-continuous texts that these authors refer to as graphic, locative, and entry documents.
The distinction between continuous and non-continuous texts formed the basis for two of the three literacy scales used in IALS. Continuous texts were the basis for tasks that were placed along the prose scale while non-continuous texts formed the basis for tasks along the document scale. The quantitative scale included texts that were both continuous and non-continuous. The distinguishing characteristic for this scale was that respondents needed to identify and perform one or more arithmetic operations based on information contained in the texts. This scale was replaced in IALSS with the numeracy scale, which is discussed in more detail later in this annex.
Processes/strategies. This task characteristic refers to the way in which examinees process text to respond correctly to a question or directive. It includes the processes used to relate information in the question (the given information) to the necessary information in the text (the new information) as well as the processes needed to either identify or construct the correct response from the information available. Three variables used to investigate tasks from national and international surveys will be summarized here. These are: type of match, type of information requested, and plausibility of distracting information.
Four types of matching strategies were identified: locating, cycling, integrating, and generating. Locating tasks require examinees to match one or more features of information stated in the question to either identical or synonymous information provided in the text. Cycling tasks also require examinees to match one or more features of information, but unlike locating tasks, they require respondents to engage in a series of feature matches to satisfy conditions stated in the question.
Integrating tasks require examinees to pull together two or more pieces of information from the text according to some type of specified relation. For example, this relation might call for examinees to identify similarities (i.e., make a comparison), differences (i.e., contrast), degree (i.e., smaller or larger), or cause-and-effect relations. This information may be located within a single paragraph or it may appear in different paragraphs or sections of the text. In integrating information, examinees draw upon information categories provided in a question to locate the corresponding information in the text. They then relate the text information associated with these different categories based upon the relation term specified in the question. In some cases, however, examinees must generate these categories and/or relations before integrating the information stated in the text.