Fostering cognitive control through reflection in scientific writing

ABSTRACT

This paper aims to determine the role cognitive control awareness plays in university students through their scientific writing. Results show that through an assessment-centred instruction approach embedded in reflective learning, tertiary students at a faculty of sciences can achieve greater metacognitive awareness of their learning. Fourth-year students in a physical oceanography class displayed cognitive control over established activities designed to develop their discursive writing skills (writing components included objectives, subject content, methodologies, contextualization and environmental implications on local and global scales). Scientific writing was promoted through students managing their own learning processes and cognitive control through metacognitive awareness, i.e. through a constructivist scheme embedded in formative learning. In the POST test, students scored higher primarily in the categories of writing methodologies, and bibliographies. Teacher expertise, which was mainly provided through feedback and scaffolding for student autonomy was highly valued by the students, and included considering the effects of a teacher assessing their writing and providing strategies to write a better scientific paper

KEYWORDS:

• Scientific writing
• cognitive control
• awareness
• reflection
• sustainable science

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Funding

This research was supported bythe Institute of Science Education Josep Pallach UdG, under Grant [ICE-XIDAR03-2022].

Data availability statement

The data that has been created during the research project will be available on request from the corresponding author.

Institutional Review Board Statement

This study was conducted according the Declaration of Helsinki’ rules and statements. The study was approved by the Ethics Committee of the University of the Author, assigned to protocol code XIDAR042021 on the 5th of September 2021. Individual informed consent was obtained from all the students involved in the research study.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Teresa Serra

Teresa Serra: She is an Associate Professor at the Department of Physics at the University of Girona, Spain.

M. Eugenia Gras

M. Eugenia Gras: She is an Associate Professor at the Department of Psychology at the University of Girona and at the Quality of Life Research Institute, Spain.

Dolors Cañabate

Dolors Cañabate: She is an Associate Professor at the Department of Specific Didactics of the University of Girona. She is leading the Network of Cooperative Learning at the University of Girona ad the 'Càtedra Moviment i Llenguatges', Spain.

Jordi Colomer

Jordi Colomer: He is a Full Professor at the Department of Physics of the University of Girona. He is leading the Network of Cooperative and Reflective Learning at the region of Catalonia, Spain.