Examining How Novices, Apprenticing Experts, and Disciplinary Experts Approach Reading Academic Texts

<p>First-year college students are often unprepared for college-level reading, writing, and discourse. It is important to understand how various instructional practices affect students’ reading and writing abilities. The purpose of this study was to explore how reading and writing instruction grounded in a sociocognitive and combined-use theoretical framework affected participants’ reading and writing outcomes, and reading attitudes. The dependent variables were participants’ a) reading comprehension, b) summary and synthesis abilities, c) reading attitudes, and d) reading strategy application. Six participants were recruited from a first-year developmental reading course. How those participants (novices) approached academic texts compared to three English graduate students (apprentices) and three English professors (experts) was examined. Participants’ (n=4) quantitative measures increased, while their qualitative measures showed an increase in reading strategy application and verbalizations. A meta-analysis of quantitative and qualitative data showed that experts spent the least amount of time on the initial read through and the most amount of time writing and rereading. Additional outcomes were discussed.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Arts

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

English

Year dc:date.available

2017

Author dc:creator

• Tavalsky, Hali A.

Contributors dc:contributor

• Dr. Wendy A. Farkas

• Developmental Reading
• Reading-Writing Connection
• First-Year College Students Disciplinary Literacy
• Language and Literacy Education

Repository record dc:identifier

https://commons.nmu.edu/theses/139

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:commons.nmu.edu:theses-1154