WRITING IN THE SECONDARY-LEVEL DISCIPLINES, Table S41

Table S4

Summaries of Studies—Content

Study / Participants and Setting Population, Number, Location / Research Method(s) and Data Source(s) / Data Analysis / Research Focus / Study Findings
Alev, N. (2010) / N=2 physics teachers, 42 physics students
Location: Turkey / MIXED
Case study including questionnaires, observational field notes, student responses, and semi-structured interviews / Likert-scale questionnaires analyzed for mean; interviews, notes, and responses coded for themes / Value of reading and writing in science and improvements in conceptual understanding / Reading and writing activities improved students' conceptual understanding and engagement but did not improve procedural or computational skills.
Beck, S. W. & Jeffery, J. V. (2009) / N=7 10th grade students and 4 11th grade students, Humanities (history/ literature combination) course
Location: United States / QUALITATIVE
Retrospective, structured interviews along with excerpts of students' writing / Descriptive (a priori) and interpretive coding of interviews and excerpts of students' writing / Students' ability to subjectively identify themes for analytical writing and how alternate genres could help this thinking / When writing analytical expository essays, students found interpretive stances difficult. Other genres may help bridge the way to academic genres.
Buxton et al. (2013) / N= 11 science teachers (1 4th grade, 1 5th grade, 2 6th grade, 3 7th grade, and 4 8th grade) and 757 4th-8th grade students
Location: United States / MIXED
Students' assessment results analyzed quantitatively and teachers' interviews and written responses evaluated qualitatively / Pre- and posttest results equated and then analyzed for correlations; teachers' responses grouped by similarities / The use of writing-intensive educative assessments to increase instructional emphasis upon science understandings / The educative assessments enabled teachers to more accurately instruct in the areas of inquiry, content, and academic language.
Christenson, N., Rundgren, S. C., & Hoglund, H. (2012) / N=80 upper secondary students (40 science majors and 40 social science majors)
Location: Sweden / QUANTITATIVE
Student writing samples / Samples scored for 18 possible sentence-level codes and analyzed for distribution across a sociocultural framework (SEE-SEP) and knowledge, value, and personal experience (KVP) categories / How the SEE-SEP framework intersects with KVP to show students' use of argumentation and evidence in writing / Using socioscientific issues (SSIs) can enhance students' multidisciplinary engagement in science.
Keselman, A., Kaufman, D. R., Kramer, S., & Patel, V. L. (2007) / N=61 7th grade science students
Location: United States / MIXED
Assessments and reasoning tasks analyzed quantitatively; students' written and oral responses analyzed qualitatively / Pre- and posttest scores, and coded task responses analyzed using ANOVA, chi-square, and McNemar tests; excerpts from student's writing and transcribed oral responses qualitatively offer support for statistical findings / The impact of critical reasoning tasks and writing activities upon students' knowledge, understanding, and reasoning about real-life scientific issues / Students who engaged in both reasoning and writing activities exhibited higher learning outcomes than those students who engaged in reasoning tasks only or were part of the control group.
Klein, P. D., & Kirkpatrick, L. C. (2010). / N=113 students (39 5Grade 5 and 74 Grade 6) in 8 classes (4 classes for experimental treatment, 4 classes for control comparison)
Location: Canada / QUANTITATIVE
Multiple pre- and posttests / Multiple assessments (pre- and posttest in writing, argument, and explanation; posttests in writing as a tool for learning) in a multilevel analysis and path analysis / The effects of a content-area framework on text quality and abilities to use writing to learn / Instruction using this framework increased knowledge of explanations as a genre, thus increasing text quality and science knowledge
Monte-Sano, C. (2008) / N=42 high school U.S. history students (2 classes) with 2 students used as case studies
Location: United States / MIXED
Students' written responses analyzed quantitatively; interviews, observations, teacher feedback, assignments, readings analyzed qualitatively / Pre- and posttest writing sample scores compared using standard deviation and mean; other data sources organized chronologically and coded for themes and trends using time-series analyses; 2 students' essays closely analyzed using rubric / The types of instruction used to support students when writing evidence-based history essays / A constructivist approach to teaching history as interpretation supports students in writing and reasoning skills for improved learning outcomes.
Raven, S. (2015). / N=3 gifted/honors 9th-grade biology students
Location: United States / QUALITATIVE
Assessment results, written responses, interviews, and drawings / Criterion-based sampling method used to select embedded questions for analysis, and an open-coding method determined themes in students' written responses / Characterization of students' knowledge through multiple evaluative methods / Multiple assessment methods are critical for presenting the full scope of students' understanding of concepts and increasing students' content-area knowledge