Promoting attitude change and expressed willingness to take action toward climate change in college students

This study examined the relationship among cognitive and motivational variables impacting college students’ willingness to take mitigative action to reduce the impacts of human-induced climate change. One hundred and forty college students were asked to read a persuasive text about human-induced climate change and were pre and post tested on their attitudes about climate change and their willingness to take action to mitigate its effects. Students showed statistically significant changes in their attitudes about climate change and their willingness to commit to take action. A path model demonstrated that openness to change and a willingness to think deeply about issues predicted both change in attitudes and expressed willingness to take action. This research demonstrates that a persuasive text has the potential to promote change around complex socio-scientific issues.     

The use of narrative to promote primary school children's understanding of evolution

This study explores learning about evolution when information is presented in either a narrative or an expository text (ET). Narratives engage the imagination, and consequently may allow children to overcome conceptual constraints that make evolution difficult to comprehend. Participants were 16 Year One, 21 Year Two and 25 Year Three pupils from a British primary school. Expository and narrative texts about evolution were read with children before assessing participants' understanding. Those reading the narrative showed a greater understanding of the book's contents about evolution than those reading the ET. Implications for using the imagination and narrative in the science classroom are discussed.     

A Multidimensional Investigation of Deep-level and Surface-level Processing

This study examines the moderating effects of a situational factor (i.e., text type) and an individual factor (i.e., subject-matter knowledge) on the relation between depth of processing and performance. One-hundred and fifty-one undergraduates completed measures of subject-matter knowledge, read either an expository or persuasive text about the existence of extraterrestrials while thinking aloud, and then completed a passage recall task and an open-ended task. Results indicated that the relation between depth of processing and the open-ended tasks was moderated by the type of text participants read (i.e., expository or persuasive). Moreover, there was a significant interaction between the passage recall measure and open-ended task for depth of processing and type of text.     

Beliefs about Learning in Children's Understanding of Science Texts

This study examined elementary school children's beliefs about learning and assessed the influences of such beliefs on their understanding of science texts. Eighty-three children, 46 from Grade 4 and 37 from Grade 6, were administered a questionnaire on children's implicit notions of learning. Children were also asked to read a science text and complete several tasks that assessed their understanding of text information. Results indicated that older children were more likely to hold constructivist views of learning, and they also performed better than younger children on the text-processing tasks. As well, children's views of learning were significantly related to depth of text understanding when age effects were controlled. This study extends current research on epistemological beliefs of university and high school students. Implications of children's beliefs about learning and their roles in knowledge construction are discussed. Copyright 2001 Academic Press.     

Effects of learning cycle and traditional text on comprehension of science concepts by students at differing reasoning levels

Research has found the learning cycle to be effective for science instruction in hands‐on laboratories and interactive discussions. Can the learning cycle, in which examples precede the introduction of new terms, also be applied effectively to science text? A total of 123 high school students from two suburban schools were tested for reasoning ability, then randomly assigned to read either a learning cycle or traditional text passage. Immediate and delayed posttests provided concept comprehension scores that were analyzed by type of text passage and by reasoning level. Students who read the learning cycle passage earned higher scores on concept comprehension questions than those who read the traditional passage, at all reasoning levels. This result supports the hypothesis that reading comprehension and scientific inquiry involve similar information‐processing strategies and confirms the prediction that science text presented in the learning cycle format is more comprehensible for readers at all reasoning levels. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 36: 23–37, 1999.     

Students' comprehension of science textbooks using a question‐based reading strategy

Despite the heavy reliance on textbooks in college courses, research indicates that college students enrolled in first‐year science courses are not proficient at comprehending informational text. The present study investigated a reading comprehension questioning strategy with origins in clinical research based in elaboration interrogation theory, which outlines how to encourage readers to recall relevant background knowledge while reading text materials. The theory suggests that the strategy increases the likelihood that readers will integrate what they read with what they know to make new knowledge. The setting for the study more closely resembled classroom conditions compared to similar studies in the past. Unlike previous studies on reading comprehension, students read a challenging passage from the textbook used in a science course in which they were enrolled. In addition, the text was longer than that used in clinical research. The college students (n = 294) in this study were randomly assigned to either a questioning strategy treatment or a rereading placebo‐control. While reading, treatment students were presented with statements taken from regular intervals in their textbook (about every 150 words) and asked a simple why question about each of these statements. Significant differences were found favoring elaborative interrogation theory and its question strategy treatment over the placebo‐control in terms of science comprehension even after significant estimated predictors of prior knowledge and verbal ability were statistically controlled or accounted for by removing the statistical contributions of these predictors to the main effects. © 2010 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 47: 363–379, 2010     

Creating Persuasive Messages Advocating Organ Donation

Most people state that they would be willing to be organ donors, however only a small percentage of the population has actually signed an organ donor card. These studies focused on persuasive messages that encourage people to sign organ donor cards. In the first study, people reported their attitudes and knowledge involving organ donation. Results indicated that donor card signing was related to overall knowledge about donation. When only considering those people with positive attitudes toward organ donation, their overall knowledge about donation explained their willingness to sign organ donor cards. In the second study, people read a message involving organ donation before they were asked to sign an organ donor card. The content of the message (i.e., narrative vs. statistics) and the affect of the message (i.e., humorous vs. sad) were manipulated. Results indicated that narrative messages were more effective than statistical messages. Additionally, humorous messages were more effective than sad messages.     

Promoting the Understanding of Photosynthesis Among Elementary School Student Teachers Through Text Design

The purpose of this study was to investigate elementary school pre-service teachers’ understanding of photosynthesis and to examine if a refutational text can support understanding of photosynthesis better than a non-refutational text. A total of 91 elementary school pre-service teachers read either a refutational or a non-refutational text concerning photosynthesis and then answered open-ended questions. Our results indicate that there are critical problems associated with student teachers learning about the process of photosynthesis, even after it has been systematically taught in teacher education. However, the results positively indicate that refutational science texts seem to foster effective conceptual change among student teachers. The results interestingly showed that students who read a refutational text improved their systemic and factual understanding of photosynthesis more than did those who read a non-refutational text. Especially students who had naïve prior understanding regarding photosynthesis benefitted more from a refutational text. Thus, a refutational text may act as an effective facilitator of conceptual change. These results have implications for teacher education, where conceptual mastery of the most important science phenomena, such as photosynthesis, should be achieved. A refutational text is an easy and effective way to support conceptual change in higher education. Thus, this study highlights the importance of domain-specific science education in teacher programmes.     

Understanding the Fourth-Grade Slump: Our Point of View

Educators know that an achievement gap exists between students of low-income and middle-income families, a gap that is especially evident in fourth grade and beyond. This essay explores issues related to this gap, including primary-level children being immersed in narrative text and, therefore, unprepared for the challenges of informational text and content-specific vocabulary; lack of available material children are interested in reading; and limited reading opportunities created by a focus on high-stakes, test-preparation regimens.     

Comprehension in disciplinary learning: An examination of elementary readers' processing and recall

The authors explored elementary students' comprehension of informational text in disciplinary learning. Forty on-grade-level readers in Grades 2–5 participated. A priori and emergent coding was used to analyze 120 verbal protocols and 120 oral recalls. Analyses of variance and correlations showed students' processing and recall of procedural text contrasted with their processing and recall of biography or persuasive text. Also, second-grade students did not process informational text as actively or recall informational text as well as third- through fifth-grade students did. An expanded focus on students' comprehension of informational text in disciplinary learning and further study of the relationships among students' text use, text processing and recall, and development are warranted.     

It may not be that difficult the second time around: the effects of rereading on the comprehension and metacomprehension of negated text

The present research explored the awareness that readers have of the difficulty of negative text and aimed to determine whether rereading could impact comprehension and metacomprehension. Participants read passages that sometimes contained negative words such as ‘no’ and ‘not’, rated their comprehension, and answered a comprehension question about the passage. Half of the passages were read twice and rated again before the participant was prompted to answer a comprehension question. Results showed that passages that were read twice were rated as easier to understand, and questions that corresponded with those passages were answered with higher accuracy as well. However, these improvements were not exclusive to negated passages. And, while participants were aware that the negative passages were harder to comprehend, this understanding did not aid in heightened comprehension of the negative text. Rereading was demonstrated to be a helpful strategy overall but was not sufficient to specifically help with negation.     

A case of preservice elementary teachers exploring, retelling, and reframing

This study shows preservice elementary teachers' frames (points of view) about science curriculum. Frames are rules that influence how one perceives and organises events with which one thinks. Participants' frames were externalised by exploring issues from Sagan's text,The Demon Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (1996), Sagan uses commonly held frames about controversial topics to contrast pseudoscience and science. This narrative explores how students retelling their reactions (to experiences of their own design) might influence one's awareness of beliefs in general and reconsideration of personal beliefs about science and teaching. The entangled issues of critical and metaphoric thinking, as well as reframing are exemplified.     

Modifying Knowledge,Emotions, and Attitudes Regarding Genetically Modified Foods

The purpose of this study was to explore whether conceptual change predicted emotional and attitudinal change while learning about genetically modified foods (GMFs). Participants were 322 college students; half read a refutation text designed to shift conceptual knowledge, emotions, and attitudes, while the other half served as a control group. The results suggest that the refutation text effectively facilitated change in conceptual knowledge, emotions, and attitudes. The hypothesized relationship among the variables was explored using structural equation modeling. The analysis showed that when participants experienced knowledge change toward more scientifically accepted conceptions of GMFs, their emotions became more positive and less negative, which predicted a subsequent shift toward more-positive attitudes. The results suggest that change in emotions mediates the relationship between conceptual and attitudinal change. Several theoretical and practical implications are discussed including the impact that these findings may have on science education.     

The catcher in the lie: The role of emotions and epistemic judgments in changing students’ misconceptions and attitudes in a post-truth era

We extend previous theoretical and empirical work by examining the role that emotions and epistemic judgments play when learning from different refutation plus persuasive and expository plus persuasive texts. We examined how variations in messages designed to change misconceptions and attitudes about genetically modified foods (GMFs) might differentially impact the extent to which individuals engage in epistemic judgments; the emotions individuals experience during learning; and, how epistemic judgments and emotions might facilitate or constrain conceptual and attitudinal change. One hundred twenty-five undergraduate university students were randomly assigned to one of four text conditions: refutation plus positive persuasive text, refutation plus negative persuasive text, expository plus positive persuasive text, or expository plus negative persuasive text. Students were asked to think and emote out loud during learning to capture epistemic judgments and emotions as they occurred in real time. After the learning session, students also self-reported the emotions they experienced during learning. Results revealed that students who were given positive persuasive texts experienced more positive emotions (both intensity and frequency) during learning, whereas those who were given negative persuasive texts experienced more negative emotions (frequency) during learning. Students who were given positive persuasive texts engaged in more epistemic judgments and changed more misconceptions about GMFs compared to students in the other three text conditions. Finally, epistemic judgments were significant positive predictors of conceptual and attitudinal change, and both positive emotions and negative emotions predicted attitudinal change. Implications for theories of conceptual and attitudinal change are discussed.     

Reading and writing to learn in secondary education: online processing activity and written products in summarizing and synthesizing tasks

The research reported here employed a multiple-case study methodology to assess the online cognitive and metacognitive activities of 15-year-old secondary students as they read informational texts and wrote a new text in order to learn, and the relation of these activities to the written products they were asked to generate. To investigate the influence of the task, students were required to perform two different tasks which differed in complexity and familiarity. The first task was reading a single text and making a written summary of it, while the second consisted in reading two texts and making a written synthesis of them. To gather information about how students construct meaning from informational texts, we asked students to think aloud as they read and wrote in order to provide us with information about their comprehension and composition processes. We also examined their reading and writing activities during the tasks. The results show that to a large extent secondary school students lack the cognitive and metacognitive processes that would enable them to make strategic use of reading and writing. They also show that, although there are no major differences in the way secondary school students tackle these different tasks, those who create the most elaborate products evidence a more recursive and flexible use of reading and writing. The most obvious conclusion as far as the repercussions of these findings are concerned is that there is an urgent need for work on tasks of this kind in the classroom.     

L1 and L2 vocabulary glosses in L2 reading passages: Their effectiveness for increasing comprehension and vocabulary knowledge

This study investigated the effect of vocabulary glossing on recall and vocabulary learning, as well as learners’ preferences as to glossing. Eighty-five native speakers of English studying Spanish at the university level participated. Participants read a Spanish text under one of three treatment conditions: no gloss, English glosses, or Spanish glosses. They then were asked to write what they recalled of the passage, translate a list of the glossed vocabulary, and complete a questionnaire. The translation task was repeated four weeks later. Results showed that glossing did not significantly affect recall for the participants overall, but that those with higher than average proficiency recalled more if they had read a glossed version of the text. Those who had glosses outperformed their peers on the translation task administered immediately after they had read the text. However, this difference disappeared on the retest. Participants expressed preference for glosses, wished that they be located in the margin, and favoured Spanish glosses if they were comprehensible.     

Preschool teachers’ literal and inferential questions and children's responses during whole-class shared reading

This study examined the extent to which preschool teachers used literal and inferential questions during classroom-based shared reading. Specific foci included (a) investigating the association among the level of literal or inferential language in the text, teachers’ text-related questions, and children's responses using sequential analysis, and (b) examining the relation between teachers’ inferential questioning and children's vocabulary outcomes. Participants included 25 preschool teachers and 159 four-year-old children. Teachers videotaped their whole-class shared reading of an informational narrative text. Teachers and children's extratextual talk was analyzed and children completed standardized vocabulary assessments in fall and spring of the academic year. When reading this informational narrative text, teachers posed, on average, slightly more inferential questions than literal questions. Significant sequential associations were observed between the level of teachers’ questions and child responses, with inferential questions consistently eliciting inferential child responses. Few characteristics of teachers’ questions were associated with children's vocabulary outcomes. Results suggest that preschool teachers can use inferential questioning to encourage children to participate in conversation at complex, inferential levels; informational texts appear to provide a successful context for this inferential discourse. Implications for teachers and allied professionals are discussed.     

Syntactic complexity as a predictor of adolescent writing quality: Which measures? Which genre?

This study examined the relationship of different measures of syntactic complexity with rated quality for two genres of text produced by middle school students. It was hypothesized that different measures would be associated with distinct aspects of syntactic complexity; words per clause with greater use of structures more typical of expository texts, and clauses per T-unit with structures more typical of conversational or narrative registers. A sample of 41 seventh and eighth grade students from suburban middle schools composed a narrative and persuasive essays. Texts were rated for quality and coded for syntactic features including words per clause and clauses per T-unit. Syntactic complexity as measured in words per clause was positively correlated with quality for essays but not for narratives. Clauses per T-unit was positively correlated with quality for narratives, but negatively correlated with quality for essays. The relationships between syntactic complexity and text quality were thus found to be dependent both on the genre of the text, and the measure of syntactic complexity used.     

The effects of oral repeated reading with and without corrective feedback on middle school struggling readers

This study examines the effects of oral repeated reading, with and without corrective feedback, on the fluency and comprehension skills of 60 struggling readers in 7th Grade. Comparisons were made by group on narrative and expository reading ability and by comprehension question type. Students were randomly assigned to one of two reading groups (oral repeated reading with corrective feedback and oral repeated reading without corrective feedback). Participants in each group were required to repeatedly read a narrative and an expository passage. Statistical analyses (namely, repeated measures ANOVA and ANCOVA) were used to determine the overall effects on fluency and comprehension and differential effects demonstrated by groups on text type and comprehension question type. Results indicated that both forms of intervention improved fluency and comprehension. Limitations and implications for research and practice are discussed.     

Weighing opposing positions: Examining the effects of intratextual persuasive messages on students’ knowledge and beliefs

The proliferation of new forms of media has given way to a multitude of new text structures, particularly texts designed to alter the receiver’s perspectives. Yet, little is known about the ways in which these novel text structures alter the characteristics of the receiver including one’s knowledge and beliefs. As such, the purpose of this multi-phase investigation was to explore the persuasion process when students read a persuasive message with an intratextual structure. Intratextual persuasion refers to a text structure in which two one-sided texts are presented together as a single message. As a result of reading an intratextual persuasive message, students’ perceived knowledge increased, and their topic beliefs strengthened differentially based upon students’ position on the controversial issue. Moreover, participants judged the characteristics of the overall commentary similarly, but they rated the characteristics of the two opposing texts differentially based on their position. Implications for research and instruction pertaining to persuasive texts with complex argument structure are forwarded.