Construction Of Disciplinary Knowledge Research Articles

A semantic classification of nominal technical terms in secondary school biology textbooks.

Nominal technical terms (NTTs), as crucial builders for disciplinary knowledge, can cause difficulties for students. However, previous studies have rarely associated NTTs with disciplinary knowledge construction. Apart from that, scholars of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) have mainly focused on making wordlists for one specific discipline based on corpora rather than on meanings. Moreover, the current categorization of technical terms cannot reveal their role in constructing disciplinary knowledge. Against this backdrop, we carried out a corpus-based study to classify NTTs in secondary school biology textbooks and to unveil the knowledge constructed by different types of those NTTs. As a result, we found that NTTs in those textbooks could fall into five major categories: Thing, Activity, Semiotic, Place, and Time. We also found intra-disciplinary differences in NTT distributions. The lexicogrammatical analysis indicates that the five types of NTTs can construct different knowledge. With the findings, we put forward implications for teaching biology in secondary schools.

Multimodal Academic Discourse Socialization: Examining Geoscience Students’ Disciplinary Knowledge Construction and Socialization at a Canadian University

Abstract This ethnographic multiple-case study examines how undergraduate students are socialized into the disciplinary norms, values, and practices of a geoscience course at a Canadian university. Transcending logocentric assumptions about academic discourse, this article advances a broader domain of inquiry––multimodal academic discourse socialization––which foregrounds the polysemiotic nature of academic socialization. This approach examines not only linguistic but also a wider range of semiotic resources, including gestural, visual, material, and spatial ones, among others. To understand geoscientists’ disciplinary norms, values, and communicative practices, ethnographic data (classroom observations, semi-structured interviews, course-related artefacts) were thematically analysed. Focal students’ geoscience poster presentation performances were also analysed using multimodal interaction analysis to scrutinize micro-level instantiations of disciplinary practices. Findings highlight how students were socialized into geoscience ‘observations and interpretations’ through a recurrent multimodal classroom activity, which was also reflected in micro-level multimodal practices enacted in students’ geoscience poster presentations. This study emphasizes that multimodal enactments constitute a crucial dimension of disciplinary practices and values connected with learning to think, view, and represent knowledge as geoscientists.

Developing EFL teachers’ feedback literacy for research and publication purposes through intra- and inter-disciplinary collaborations: A multiple-case study

The growing pressure for publication in prestigious English-medium journals and scholars’ increasing need to participate international research communities have given rise to the initiatives of English for Academic Purposes (EAP) courses or English for Research and Publication Purposes (ERPP) feedback service. Providing such ERPP feedback to students’ research papers brings forward the necessity for EFL teachers, who often give the feedback, to develop ERPP feedback literacy. Given the paucity of research on this topic, the purpose of this study is thus to explore how EFL teachers could develop their ERPP feedback literacy through feedback provision practices. Drawing upon teacher-provided written feedback collected from four EFL teachers over five years (i.e., 2017–2022), semi-structured interviews, and teachers’ verbalizations while giving feedback and stimulated recalls, this multiple-case study shows that through intra- and inter-disciplinary collaborations when giving ERPP feedback, EFL teachers perceived an overall improvement in their ERPP feedback literacy. In particular, they moved beyond targeting feedback to surface-level linguistic errors and developed awareness in disciplinary knowledge construction in ERPP writing. We argue that the intra- and inter-disciplinary collaborations can help develop EFL teachers’ ERPP feedback literacy, and hence strengthen their EAP teacher identity.

Shadow Conversations and the Citational Practices of a Journal

Drawing on the resonances between Judith T. Irvine’s (1996) writings about “shadow conversations” and the broader linguistic anthropological literature on citational practices (Goodman et al. 2014; Nakassis 2013; Rhodes 2020), I explore how the Journal of Linguistic Anthropology has sought to and continues to engage with the politics of inclusion and diversity in the construction of disciplinary knowledge, focusing in particular on publishing in academic journals. Following an earlier attempt to include an inclusion criterion on the journal’s Scholar One review portal, I now instead endorse the views of my colleagues to adopt a variety of strategies to showcase the work of underrepresented yet critical voices in the discipline. I conclude by highlighting the influential role that linguistic anthropologists play in promoting dialogue about the interdiscursive dimensions of knowledge production in the academy.

Exploratory Interactive Explaining (EXINTEX): Constructing Disciplinary Knowledge in Two Multilingual University Settings

Abstract The rise of English-medium education has led to considerable academic interest in communicative practices in multilingual university settings. However, there is still little research into disciplinary knowledge construction in higher education contexts where English is the academic lingua franca. To address this gap, we embrace the central role of explaining in education by proposing Exploratory Interactive Explaining (EXINTEX) as an analytical tool, which identifies the elements of explanatory episodes in the joint development of disciplinary knowledge. We then apply this tool at the micro-level of interaction to two comparable contexts differentiated primarily by the presence or absence of a teacher. Our findings confirm the relevance and high level of educational success of EXINTEX episodes in both quantitative and qualitative terms. They further reveal the dynamic interplay of epistemic authority and engagement in the learning process. Additionally, they show how research into educational disciplinary discourse and English as a lingua franca in academic settings can complement and supplement each other.

“This is not familiar to most people”: navigating peer reviewers’ comments and knowledge construction practices by PhD students in supervision interactions

AbstractThis paper focuses on the under-researched genre of PhD supervision meetings (but see Vehviläinen, Sanna. 2009a. Problems in the research problem: Critical feedback and resistance in academic supervision.Scandinavian Journal of Educational Research53[2]. 185–201; Vehviläinen, Sanna. 2009b. Student-initiated advice in academic supervision.Research on Language and Social Interaction42[2]. 163–190; Björkman, Beyza. 2015. PhD supervisor–PhD student interactions in an English-medium Higher Education [HE] setting: Expressing disagreement.European Journal of Applied Linguistics3[2]. 205–229; Björkman, Beyza. 2016. PhD adviser and student interactions as a spoken academic genre. In K. Hyland & P. Shaw [eds.],The Routledge handbook of English for Academic Purposes, 348–361. Oxon: Routledge; Björkman, Beyza. 2017. PhD supervision meetings in an English as a Lingua Franca [ELF] setting: Linguistic competence and content knowledge as neutralizers of institutional and academic power.Journal of English as a Lingua Franca6[1]. 111–139) and investigates knowledge construction episodes in PhD students’ discussions with their supervisors on their co-authored papers. In these meetings, all supervisors and students use English as their lingua franca (ELF). Such supervision meetings are made up of “social negotiation” and “collaborative sense-making,” providing a good base for learning to take place (Vygotsky, L. S. 1978.Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press), which in the present context is the “enculturation” of the PhD student into the research community (Manathunga, Catherine. 2014.Intercultural postgraduate supervision: Reimagining time, place and knowledge. New York: Routledge). It is precisely these negotiation and collaborative sense-making practices that the present paper focuses on, in order to investigate knowledge construction practices. While there is an abundance of research in disciplinary knowledge construction and academic literacy practices from cognitive and behavioral sciences, knowledge about novice scholars’ knowledge construction practices is scant in applied linguistics (but see Li, Yongyan. 2006. Negotiating knowledge contribution to multiple discourse communities: A doctoral student of computer science writing for publication.Journal of Second Language Writing15[3]. 159–178). Even less is known about how PhD students may negotiate knowledge construction and engage in meaning-making practices in interaction with their supervisors. The material comprises 11 hours of naturally occurring speech by three supervisors and their students where they discuss the reviewers’ comments they have received from the journal. The predominant method employed here is applied conversation analysis (CA) (Richards, Keith & Paul Seedhouse [eds.]. 2005.Applying conversation analysis. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan), which includes both local patterns of interaction as well as “the tensions between [these] local practices and any ‘larger structures’ in which these are embedded, such as conventional membership categories, institutional rules, instructions, accounting obligations, etc.” (Have, Paul ten. 2007.Doing conversation analysis. London: Sage 199). The analyses here aim to show how the PhD supervisors and students discuss the reviewers’ comments with reference to (i) their own disciplinary community of climate science, and (ii) the domestic discourse community of the target journals (see also Li, Yongyan. 2006. Negotiating knowledge contribution to multiple discourse communities: A doctoral student of computer science writing for publication.Journal of Second Language Writing15[3]. 159–178). The preliminary findings of the analyses show a tendency by the PhD students to focus more heavily on the domestic discourse community of the target journals, especially when justifying their methodological choices. The PhD supervisors, on the other hand, base their meaning-making on the conventions of the disciplinary community of climate science, pointing out broader disciplinary community practices. These findings, highlighting a need to focus on novice scholars’ meaning-making efforts, can be used to inform PhD supervision in general.

Writing at university: are we on the same page? / Escribir en la universidad: ¿nos entendemos?

This study seeks to analyse the characteristics and functions that students and faculty attribute to written genres in Spanish universities, to what extent these representations are shared by both groups, and how they contribute to the construction of disciplinary knowledge in Spanish higher education. Accordingly, we classified students’ and teachers’ responses into 12 genre families grouped into five functions: Disciplinary Knowledge (DK), Critical Analysis (AC), Personal Reflection (PR), Research (R) and Professional Practice (PP). In terms of functions, demonstration of disciplinary knowledge appeared as the most frequently mentioned goal for both groups, whereas the genres targeted at research were the least frequent ones, along with the genres used for personal reflection. The most common genre family for both groups was Explanation, which was linked to demonstration of knowledge acquired in the discipline.

Plurilingual teaching and learning practices in ‘internationalised’ university lectures

This article explores how participants in ‘internationalised’ university lectures draw on the different plurilingual (and multimodal) resources available to them in accomplishing teaching and learning activities. The data are from lectures that took place in four different technology subjects at two Catalan universities. Two aspects of the corpus are focused on in the analysis. On the one hand, what is referred to as a plurilingual multimodal design of the lectures studied is presented. On the other, some ways in which the recurrent emergence of code-switching in the corpus may be considered a resource for the construction of disciplinary knowledge are sketched out. In this regard, the analysis focuses on three features: the management of participation, the management of comprehension and attention and the management of complexity. The practices studied in the article offer empirical insights into how internationalisation of universities in Catalonia and elsewhere – and in particular the teaching of subjects in a second language – can be achieved in harmony with existing plurilingualism and ensuring complexity of disciplinary content teaching and learning.

The Process of Learning in a Simulation Strategy Game: Disciplinary Knowledge Construction

Researchers question how and what students learn from commercial digital games. Using a concurrent mixed-methods approach, this study examined 30 students' construction of knowledge and skills while playing a commercial off-the-shelf game for 7 weeks. Quantitative data included students' background survey and pre- and post-assessments for knowledge and motivation. Qualitative data included students log sheets to document their progress of play through the game, videotaped interviews after each playing session as well as videotaped game sessions. Analysis indicates that two main play strategies were used during the process of learning— explorers or goal seekers. Both player types were able to statistically significantly gain disciplinary knowledge and skills, but only explorers significantly valued the learning.

Constructing a Bilingual Professional Identity in a Graduate Classroom

This article explores the construction of a bilingual professional identity in a bilingual creative-writing graduate program in southwest Texas by analyzing a classroom event and the participants' interpretation of it. In bilingual classrooms the resources available to construct professional identities include a large repertoire of linguistic practices and cultural frames. This context provides a space to explore how language, power, and identity are negotiated in bilingual settings. The data were analyzed from a social constructivist perspective using tools from Systemic Functional Linguistics (Halliday, 1994; Martin & White, 2005) and theme patterns. The paper demonstrates how 3 types of positioning—attitudinal, dialogic, and intertextual—contribute to the construction of various bilingual professional identities in the community and the idea that both Spanish and English are considered legitimate in the construction of disciplinary knowledge. The conclusions point to the importance of interpreting and explaining professional-identity construction as dynamic practices set in sociohistorical context.

Editorial Introduction: Logics of Inquiry for the Analysis of Video Artefacts: Researching the Construction of Disciplinary Knowledge in Classrooms

Editorial Introduction: Logics of Inquiry for the Analysis of Video Artefacts: Researching the Construction of Disciplinary Knowledge in Classrooms

Negotiating knowledge contribution to multiple discourse communities: A doctoral student of computer science writing for publication

Despite the rich literature on disciplinary knowledge construction and multilingual scholars’ academic literacy practices, little is known about how novice scholars are engaged in knowledge construction in negotiation with various target discourse communities. In this case study, with a focused analysis of a Chinese computer science doctoral student's alternate forms of one paper, i.e., its Chinese version aimed at publication by her target domestic journals and its English version aimed at acceptance by an overseas-based international conference, I report the strategies and problems of the student in negotiation of knowledge contribution in three layers of discourse communities: her disciplinary community of artificial intelligence (AI), the domestic discourse community as represented by her target domestic journals, and the international discourse community as represented by her target international conference. I point out that the student's practices of negotiation with her target communities were closely related to her novice status. In terms of pedagogical recommendations to assist novice scholars’ efforts in knowledge contribution, apart from pointing to the need for particular textual-level assistance, this study highlights the importance of incorporating into the EAP classroom consciousness-raising with regard to the epistemological characteristics of particular disciplines, as well as helping students to develop a critical positioning on the conventions of alternate discourse communities in their effort to contribute to disciplinary knowledge.

Understanding paradigms used for nursing research

The aims of this paper are to add clarity to the discussion about paradigms for nursing research and to consider integrative strategies for the development of nursing knowledge. Paradigms are sets of beliefs and practices, shared by communities of researchers, which regulate inquiry within disciplines. The various paradigms are characterized by ontological, epistemological and methodological differences in their approaches to conceptualizing and conducting research, and in their contribution towards disciplinary knowledge construction. Researchers may consider these differences so vast that one paradigm is incommensurable with another. Alternatively, researchers may ignore these differences and either unknowingly combine paradigms inappropriately or neglect to conduct needed research. To accomplish the task of developing nursing knowledge for use in practice, there is a need for a critical, integrated understanding of the paradigms used for nursing inquiry. We describe the evolution and influence of positivist, postpositivist, interpretive and critical theory research paradigms. Using integrative review, we compare and contrast the paradigms in terms of their philosophical underpinnings and scientific contribution. A pragmatic approach to theory development through synthesis of cumulative knowledge relevant to nursing practice is suggested. This requires that inquiry start with assessment of existing knowledge from disparate studies to identify key substantive content and gaps. Knowledge development in under-researched areas could be accomplished through integrative strategies that preserve theoretical integrity and strengthen research approaches associated with various philosophical perspectives. These strategies may include parallel studies within the same substantive domain using different paradigms; theoretical triangulation to combine findings from paradigmatically diverse studies; integrative reviews; and mixed method studies. Nurse scholars are urged to consider the benefits and limitations of inquiry within each paradigm, and the theoretical needs of the discipline.

Representing archaeological knowledge in museums: Exhibiting human origins and strategies for change

Archaeological representation is a relatively new field of inquiry in the discipline, focusing on the construction of knowledge by the diverse range of ‘non-academic‘ media that present the past. In this analysis the subject of museum display and the construction of disciplinary knowledge is addressed, with a case study on the way the subject of human origins has been exhibited. After an initial discussion outlining the manner in which displays construct the past, I proceed to establish that displays of human origins have created a highly formulaic and restrictive version of our evolution as a species. This critique is then followed by a set of five proposed strategies for dismantling the display canon so firmly entrenched in museum practice. These are: 1) engaging the present; 2) challenging the iconography; 3) abandoning the narrative; 4) telling different stories; and 5) harnessing emotion.

Communication Across the Curriculum and in the Disciplines: Speaking in Engineering

This study embraces a communication in the disciplines (CID) theoretical framework and explores meanings associated with speaking competently as an engineer. Using qualitative methodology, I analyze faculty lectures and evaluations, student dress and final presentations, and course materials from a senior design series and describe emerging features of speaking competence in engineering. Results indicate five important features of speaking in engineering: simplicity, persuasiveness, results-oriented, numerically rich and visually sophisticated-all of which invoke the skill of translation. Ultimately, this study makes theoretical contributions that suggest orality as a site for disciplinary knowledge construction, disciplinary socialization, and negotiation of disciplinary tension.