Science fiction prototyping’s features and impact on college students’ perceptions of writing

Abstract

The present study develops an applied literariness study by exploring both the features, and the impact, of science fiction prototyping (SFP) on college students’ perceptions of disciplinary, or field-specific, writing. College students (N = 83), who were English (n = 35) or STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) majors (n = 48), composed micro-science fiction prototyping (µSFP), a genre that blends creative and science writing. Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count (LIWC2015) analysis demonstrated that, aside from a more positive average emotional tone, µSFP written fell psycho-linguistically between personal and science writing. English and STEM majors’ µSFP stories were similar in terms of analytical levels, clout, authenticity, emotional tone, and use of words. Mann-Whitney U tests indicated that, while English majors evaluated creative writing as significantly more relevant to their future career goals pre-intervention than did STEM majors (p = .04, r = .23), this difference vanished post-intervention. Additionally, while STEM majors evaluated science writing as significantly more worth their time to study (p = .042, r = .22) and relevant to their major (p = .01, r = .28) pre-intervention than did English majors, these differences disappeared post-intervention. Wilcoxon signed-ranks tests indicated that, while English majors’ ownership and evaluation of science and creative writing did not change, STEM majors’ evaluations of creative writing as relevant to their majors and future careers were significantly higher post-intervention (p = .015, r = .35)

Lab Reports and Horror Stories: Leveraging Chemistry Majors’ Writing Interests for Student Engagement and Retention

“…At the same time, disciplinary writing framed as a WID experience that socializes students into disciplinary ways of thinking may then help students develop declarative knowledge about writing genres as responses to recurring social exigencies or needs. Educators may especially be able to leverage the reflective power of journaling as a WTL experience and the WID experience of such imaginative writing that is used in industry, such as science fiction prototyping (Nicholes, 2018(Nicholes, , 2020, to give students chances to demonstrate how creative narratives lie within scientific-discourse boundaries. Participants in this study, as noted above, may have found value in more explicitly overlaying science writing with creative and personal writing.…”