Student connections with academic texts: a phenomenographic study of reading

Abstract

Concerns about the ability of post-secondary students to read scholarly materials are well documented in the literature. A key aspect of reading at the deeper level expected of these students is connecting new information to prior knowledge. This study is based on an activity where students were explicitly required to make such connections as part of an in-class workshop on reading. Phenomenographic analysis of these connections showed that students could establish links between the scholarly article and their personal and academic knowledge. It also showed that students read at both surface and deep levels, making connections to the words in the text or on a deeper level, to the meaning of the text. These insights suggest ways of encouraging students to deepen their engagement with academic texts.

Keywords:

• reading
• connections
• phenomenography
• prior knowledge
• scholarly articles

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the Mount Royal University Institute for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning and Nexen Scholars programme for supporting this project. Thanks are also due to fellow Nexen scholars, colleagues (especially those who let me play with their students) and most of all to the students themselves. This study has benefited from several rounds of feedback during Human Research Ethics Board approval processes, Nexen Scholars residencies and ‘work in progress’ sessions at MRU.