Abstracts Language, Literature, and Linguistic

What connection(s) would an analysis of science teacher writing (scientific language constructs, demands and implications) demonstrate between teacher language, student language, and student performance?

by Karina S McKoy

Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) The aim of the study is to ascertain the important linguistic associations between the language constructs of teacher designed assessment tasks and the language constructs of the student responses to these tasks. The data sample being utilised was generated from the SIPA (Systematic Implications of Pedagogy and Achievement) study conducted between 2004 and 2007 by the University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia. Computer software (Wordsmith tools 6.0) is the instrument that has been utilised to explore the large corpus of data for descriptive linguistic features such as frequencies and distribution of words (technical and semi-technical) and word use in context (concordances). The investigation of a noteworthy portion of the data has been accomplished using a modified Hallidayan ‘Systemic Functional Linguistic’ analytical framework, the intent being the classification of the words generated by the Corpus Linguistics software instrument according to traditional grammatical descriptors of the word (parts of speech); the syntactic behaviour of words; the semantic operation of words; the morphological function of words and the meaning of words in context. A Language Complexity Model was developed for the study from the two descriptive viewpoints. This model was designed to analyse the text in a way that was specific to elucidating the features and challenges of scientific writing and the degrees to which these occurred in the samples. The model broke Language Complexity down into four components, namely Discourse-expression, Precision, Technicity and Elaboration. Statistical analyses involving the literacy related prior achievement of the students; the performance of the students on the standards referenced School Certificate examination and SIPA ‘Teacher Practice (Language)’, data obtained from classroom observations data from the teachers were conducted to determine associations with the Complexity of the language used in the teacher tasks examined and the corresponding students’ responses to those tasks. Where possible inferences were made regarding whether or not Language Complexity in teacher writing could be a predictor of student performance. The results of the study will hopefully provide insight into the association between the novices’ high or low achievement on scientific tasks and the scientific language used in the design of the task, by those with mastery and hopefully inform teaching practice in the future. Advisors/Committee Members: University of Newcastle. Faculty of Education & Arts, School of Education.