Promoting Scientific Understanding through Animated Multimodal Texts
Science is intrinsically multimodal due to the limitations of verbal language and the need for different ways of explaining scientific processes. Images, mathematical formulas, and academic discourse work interdependently in science explanatory texts maki
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Promoting Scientific Understanding through Animated Multimodal Texts Maximiliano Montenegro, Alejandra Meneses, Soledad Véliz, José Pablo Escobar, Marion Garolera, and María Paz Ramírez
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Animated Text and Reading Comprehension in Fifth Grade
While science education increasingly includes hands-on inquiry and activities, reading comprehension remains a fundamental skill for knowledge building (Patterson, Roman, Friend, Osborne, & Donovan, 2018; Pearson, Moje, & Greenleaf, 2010). However, reading in science is a challenging process for elementary school students because of the abstract scientific concepts involved and also because these scientific ideas are organized and logically connected by an academic discourse that they are not familiar with (Fang, 2006; Snow, 2010). In fact, McNamara, Ozuru, and Floyd (2011) contributed empirical evidence to the so-called “fourth-grade slump” by comparing students’ reading comprehension according to prior knowledge (low vs. high), type of discursive genre (literary narrative vs. scientific explanatory) and degree of textual cohesion (low vs. high). The results showed that comprehension of science texts among fourth-grade students is significantly lower than in narrative texts in all measures, both receptive and productive. Coincidentally, the 2016 results of the Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS) showed statistically significant differences in fourth-grade students performance in reading comprehension between expository scientific texts and narrative literary texts, mainly in favor of the latter; specifically, Chilean students’ performance in expository scientific texts was fifteen points lower than in narrative literary texts (Mullis, Martin, Foy, & Hooper, 2017).
M. Montenegro (*) · A. Meneses · S. Véliz · J. P. Escobar · M. Garolera Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Santiago, Chile e-mail: [email protected] M. P. Ramírez ONG Neyün, Santiago, Chile © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 L. Unsworth (ed.), Learning from Animations in Science Education, Innovations in Science Education and Technology 25, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56047-8_6
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Although scientific texts are multimodal –the construction of meaning occurs in the interaction of verbal and visual modes– research on reading comprehension of science texts has instead focused on the role of verbal language (Kloser, 2013, 2016; McNamara et al., 2011) and less research has been done that addresses the role of visual language in reading comprehension. McTigue and Slough (2010) propose orientations for the construction of more accessible scientific texts for students, and they emphasize not only the degree of concreteness of verbal language and a voice to engage the reader, but also a high-quality visual language that relates with verbal language. Ge, Unsworth, and Wang (2017) explored the effect of redesigned biological images with explicit visual cues through a quasi-experimental study of on-line reading. Their research showed that tree-structured dia
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