A study of the writing tasks and reading assigned to undergraduate science students at a South African University

Construct Relevant or Irrelevant? The Role of Linguistic Complexity in the Assessment of English Language Learners’ Science Knowledge

“…Abedi et al, 2000Abedi et al, /2005Mahoney, 2008;Wolf & Leon, 2009) A new substance is formed. Hanrahan, 2006;Jackson, Meyer, & Parkinson, 2006;Schleppegrell 2004 Long sentences (Abedi et al, 2000(Abedi et al, /2005Mahoney, 2008;Wolf & Leon, 2009) Mixing Kool-Aide with water changes the color of the water, but it is a physical change because you can separate the two substances by evaporating or boiling off the water from Kool-Aide. Bailey et al, 2004;Fang, 2006 Long noun phrases/ prepositional phrases (e.g., Bailey, 2000;Mahoney, 2008) The units for measuring length in the customary system are inches, feet, and yards.…”

“…Although studies have not analyzed the rhetorical organization (text structure) of science tests, the styles of rhetorical organization used in the texts of science learning (the TLU domain) have been examined. In science learning, students are often expected to produce and comprehend explicit procedure recounts and/or research articles (Halliday & Webster, 2004;Honig, 2010;Jackson, Meyer, & Parkinson, 2006;Reeves, 2005), arguments with claim and evidence (Lemke, 1990;National Research Council, 2012;Naylor et al, 2007;Reeves, 2005), explanations Halliday & Webster, 2004;National Research Council, 2012;Schleppegrell, 2004), descriptions (Arnold, 2012;Bailey et al, 2004;Honig, 2010;Schleppegrell, 1998), and comparisons (Arnold, 2012;Bailey et al, 2004;. Therefore, if students are not expected to make meaning from argumentation and explanation texts on science tests, this may suggest that these assessments suffer from construct underrepresentation.…”

Open Praxis, volumen 7 issue 1

“…She further reports that students felt that the types of responses they got were hypocritical and ineffective in improving their writing (ibid). Furthermore, Jackson, Meyer and Parkinson (2006) note that grammatical accuracy influences students' marks to a lesser extent, and tone and style only marginally, and that feedback on student writing is largely in the form of brief written comments, with corrections of grammar also being common. However, Dowden, Pittaway, Yost and McCarthy (2013) report that students are sometimes irritated by feedback on grammar.…”

Widening student access and participation in Allied Health Sciences: A critical reflection

“…Based on the experience of Science and Engineering Faculties in South Africa (Jackson, Meyer and Parkinson 2006), assumptions were made that students may not have the necessary level of scientific knowledge, and academic and quantitative literacy skills for success in tertiary education; and that such students would come mostly from under-resourced schools in under-resourced communities. The FHS evolved an Intervention Programme (IP), first adopted in the medical programme in 2002 and first of its kind in the country, was subsequently modified for application in the allied health sciences.…”