Language as an indicator of meaning generation: An analysis of middle school students' written discourse about scientific investigations

The purposes of this study were to (a) investigate how one group of middle school students generated meanings for scientific data and expressed them in writing, and (b) develop a methodology for assessing the relationship between students' written text and their scientific thinking. Previous research on writing to learn has focused on the reformulation of content material supplied by the teacher, rather than authentic inquiry data that provide opportunities for meaningful interpretation. The research design was a content analysis of documents produced in a naturalistic setting. Data analysis focused on the frequency, placement, and purpose of meaningful inferences embedded in the reports, as well as coding for the elaboration, extension, and enhancement of science ideas. Results indicated that many student reports included a minimal number of written inferences, expressing only vague meanings for the data. However, some students integrated inference and data, using inference to (a) explain specific meanings for data points in context, and (b) pose new hypotheses to explain data. An analysis of expansion characteristics revealed that some students were able to elaborate richly upon their initial ideas through the use of language, thereby generating new meaning for the investigations. © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Res Sci Teach 36: 1044–1061, 1999