Reading Scientific Texts Research Articles

An anthropology of reading science texts in online media

Reading multimodal (popularized) scientific texts predominantly is studied in terms of technical decoding skills said to be required. In this chapter I suggest that there are other interesting approaches to the study of reading multimodal (popularized) scientific texts grounded in anthropological concerns and the notion of reading as social praxis. These concerns include questions of what people read, how much they read, and the purposes and effects of reading. Here, I focus on reading practices and the kind of semiotic (meaning-making) resources (popularized) scientific texts in online media make available for the practices of reading, including the way in which membership categories are used to link different aspects of a text. An anthropology of reading (online science) ought to be of interest to (science) educators and educational psychologists, because, as part of development, members of society encounter reading first in their transactions with others, as a social phenomenon, before reading becomes an individual phenomenon. Important aspects of reading multimodal (popularized) scientific texts therefore can be found by studying sociocultural and cultural-historical practices and resources. Because “mind” is found in society, the development of higher-order psychological processes including reading can be studied using methods more typically found in disciplines concerned with culture. In this chapter, I take inspirations from anthropological and ethnomethodological approaches to reading generally that are consistent with a culturalhistorical approach and develop them for my study of the reading of online (popularized) scientific texts. My database includes all science texts that BBC published online between February 16 and March 31, 2007. I develop a framework for reading these texts from a cultural-historical practice perspective and provide exemplary analyses of reading such multimodal texts from an anthropological and ethnomethodological perspective.

Reading Scientific Texts: Adapting Primary Literature for Promoting Scientific Literacy

This special issue of Research in Science Education focuses on the reading of scientific texts in general, and on the adaptation of primary scientific literature for promoting scientific literacy among high-school science students in particular. Since several scientific text genres are mentioned extensively throughout this issue, the aim of this brief editorial section is to provide a framework that will enable the reader to easily distinguish between them. This is followed by a brief outline of the special issue.

Does multimedia learning theory extend to middle-school students?

The purpose of this study is to translate principles of multimedia learning from college-age readers to middle grade students, when reading science texts with a supporting diagram. In this experimental study, sixth-grade students ( n = 180) were randomly assigned to display conditions before reading. Each student read two explanatory sciences passages, a life-science and a physical science text. Passages were accompanied by either no illustrations (control), illustrations of the cycle with labels for each part (parts), illustrations of the cycle with labels for each major process (steps), or illustrations showing the labels for each part and each major process (parts and steps). Additionally, there were two text conditions in which half of the students read standard text (control) and half read texts with cues which indicated to students when to access the diagrams (cued). Through ANOVA analysis, in the life-science text students showed modest improvement (partial η 2 = .18) from the addition of diagrams, with the p arts diagram and the steps diagram outperforming the control. In the physical science text, students did not receive benefit from the diagrams. Findings did not replicate results from college-age readers to younger readers, nor between the two texts with younger readers. These results raise concern for the application of multimedia design theory to classroom practice.

Cognitive processes in comprehension of science texts: the role of co‐activation in confronting misconceptions

AbstractIn this paper, we investigate the effects of readers' incorrect knowledge on the on‐line comprehension processes during reading of science texts, with an eye towards examining the conditions that encourage revision of such knowledge. We employed computational (Landscape Model) and empirical (think‐aloud and reading times) methods to compare comprehension processes by readers with correct and incorrect background knowledge, respectively. Science texts were presented in either regular or refutation versions; Prior research using off‐line methods suggests that refutation versions promote revision in readers with incorrect knowledge. The results of the current study indicate that incorrect knowledge systematically influences both type and content of processing. Moreover, simultaneous activation of correct and incorrect conceptions during reading plays an essential role in knowledge revision: The computational simulations show that refutation texts create optimal circumstances for co‐activation of the incorrect and correct conceptions and the empirical data show that such a co‐activation is associated with inconsistency detection and revision activities by the readers with incorrect knowledge. These findings provide insights in the effects of misconceptions on the on‐line text processing and have important implications for the development of methods for achieving revision during reading. Copyright © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

The geography of Darwinism

This paper is a contribution to the project of elucidating the geographies of science. The role of space, place and location in the production, consumption and circulation of scientific knowledge has been attracting increasing attention. Here the focus is on the significance of place in reading scientific texts. After several preliminary reflections on what is meant by 'geographies of reading', the paper explores the different ways Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection was interpreted in three different settings in the nineteenth century: the Charleston Museum of Natural History in South Carolina, the St Petersburg Society of Naturalists in Russia, and the Wellington Philosophical Society in New Zealand. This exercise demonstrates something of the ways in which local circumstances shaped how readers encountered Darwin's theory.

Science, text and space: thoughts on the geography of reading

The idea of a ‘geography of reading’ provides a potential point of conversation between the cultural and scientific wings of our profession. Here I explore some dimensions of the geography of reading scientific texts. Drawing on a number of theoretical pronouncements – Gadamer's ‘fusion of horizons’, Said's ‘travelling theory’, Secord's ‘geographies of reading’, Beer's ‘miscegenation of texts’, Fish's ‘interpretive communities’ and Rupke's ‘geographies of reception’– I focus on the spaces where scientific theories are encountered. The argument is that where scientific texts are read has an important bearing on how they are read. This realization points to a fundamental instability in scientific meaning and to the crucial significance of what might be called located hermeneutics. As a case study in the development of a cartographics of scientific meaning, I explore the different ways in which Darwin's fundamentally biogeographical theory of evolution by natural selection was construed in a number of different settings. The sites I have chosen to illustrate this are the scientific communities which congregated around the Charleston Museum of Natural History in South Carolina, the Wellington Philosophical Society and New Zealand Institute, and the St Petersburg Society of Naturalists in Russia during the second half of the nineteenth century. In each case the encounter with evolution theory, and the ways it was interpreted, are shown to have been shaped by local cultural politics, thereby disclosing the critical role that space plays in the production of scientific meaning.

Children's Learning from Science Texts: A Critique of ‘EXIT into Understanding’

AbstractThis article is a reply to an earlier article published in Reading Volume 29 (1) in which David Wray and Maureen Lewis outlined their EXIT model for describing the process of children learning from text. Here Alan Peacock, a science specialist with a particular interest in the use of texts in developing countries, questions the applicability of the EXIT model to children's reading of science texts in other contexts. He rightly makes the point that not enough research has been carried out into the use of texts in various curriculum areas and in various contexts and his article is a challenge to begin such extended research.

Reading scientific texts in English

Science text books and science texts are complicated documents for the native speaking student quite apart from the student studying in a second language. The article is mainly concerned with establishing this complexity. It does so by an analysis of English scientific texts which considers their complexity as a product of three separate yet closely connected variables: the linguistic, the rhetorical and the conceptual variables. Each of these variables is analysed in detail. After outlining the nature of scientific texts from this viewpoint, the article then goes on to examine some of the problems which can arise in an ESP reading programme. Finally, an attempt is made to develop a framework of guidance notes for ESP reading programmes based upon the issues arising from the analysis.