Construction of scientific knowledge through writing

Klein, P. D., & Unsworth, L. (2014). The logogenesis of writing to learn: A systemic functional perspective. Linguistics and Education, 26, 1-17.

Background

The authors stated that writing to learn has become an important practice in science education. The authors stated that, while discourse studies have focused on students’ development in the use of nominalization (i.e. a grammatical metaphor in which a process, typically construed as a verb, is instead construed as a noun) in their scientific writing, writing has been relatively peripheral and incidental to other activities such as lessons from the teacher, readings, and small group discussions. Moreover, the samples have been rather short.

Aims

The authors aimed to investigate the question of how scientific knowledge is constructed during writing, through examining students’ texts to better understand how language developed as students constructed during writing. The authors also aimed to understand the other forms of grammatical metaphor, apart from nominalization, that students may use in writing, and how these function in the unfolding of a given text.

Sample

The sample included four university students chosen from a larger group of 72. None of them were science majors.

Method

The university students first completed a pre-test on one of two science topics. They then constructed a learning journal explaining that topic, followed by an observation of two demonstrations of that topic. Next, they constructed an interpretation of those demonstrations. Finally, they completed a post-test assessing their learning during their writing.

Four of the journal texts were analysed with a focus on mapping semantic elements to grammatical choices, the ways in which this mapping unfolded throughout the course of each text, and the role of grammatical metaphor in reasoning.

Findings

The pre-tests showed that prior to writing the journals, the students were unable to make accurate predictions or explain using scientific principles; however, by the end of their journal texts, valid explanations were offered. A comparison of pre- and post-test results also showed that participants constructed new explanations during writing.

The students’ initial texts began congruently – grammar was closely mapped to experience. Eventually, each text shifted towards greater use of grammatical metaphor. Students’ texts showed several properties of professional scientific texts, such as transcategorization, compaction and logicality.

Implications

The authors opined that certain types of writing might lead to learning. Also, the specific differences found between professional scientific texts and the students’ journal entries suggest that teachers could consider explicitly teaching writing practices that model those of science experts.

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