Empirical Research Strategies - Essay Example

The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you'll go. Dr. Seuss Introduction Empiricalresearch into the best strategies that allow reading of non-fictional texts has grown in popularity over the past century. With the advent of systematic research and empirical studies, it has been essential that readers learn to critically interpret and evaluate pieces of writing to determine the strengths and weaknesses of a piece, as well as its overall purpose and supposed implications (Beers, 2000). In general, reading is a process that is comprised of three general phases; 1) before-; 2) during-; and 3) after-reading. Recognition of this process allows a reader to develop their own personal strategies that align with goal outcomes of each phase. In this way a reader can be assured that they will read more effectively, deeply and meaningfully (Fairbrain, 2000). As such, by employing strategies that address each phase in a specific way the reader is able to cultivate a critical skill of self-conscious reading. Also, a reader is better able to understand that a variety of reading techniques are required in order to understand and actively engage with a text. This paper will critically review a selection of reading strategies to demonstrate their benefits to teaching and learning of reading non-fictional texts. Firstly, before-reading will be discussed and reference made to the technique of using an Anticipation Guide. Secondly, during-reading will be presented with an example of the Anolighting Text method. Next, after-reading will be reviewed with reference to Organizational methods. Following, the implications of presented reading strategies for teaching practice will be outlined, and recommendations made for implication within the classroom. Finally, a conclusion shall synthesize the main points of the paper to illustrate the critical benefit of reading strategies for student understanding and conceptualization of non-fictional texts. Review of the Literature Before-Reading Strategies The before-reading phase is where the reader determines within themselves the purpose of reading the text, and develops a tentative plan as to how to approach the reading endeavor (Beers, 2000). It is suggested that before a reader begins on a text that they take the time to survey the material so as to get an overall 'feel' for the material, before attempting to tackle link the details (Fairbrain, 2000). The first step suggested by Fairbrain is to understand the title of the article or text to be read. This requires careful reading to identify the key words used. For example "definition", "effect", "review", "comparison" or "analysis" (Duffy et al., 1987). A definition will aim to differentiate a concept/process from other members of the class by listing the term's distinguishing characteristics. An effect will seek to identify a cause that directly leads to a consequence (effect) that requires tracing probable or known effects of a certain cause or examining one or more effects and discussing the reasonable or known cause(s). A review will present a series of research that discusses the findings and conclusions of previous studies by aggregating data to present the overall scope of the topic to date. Whereas a comparison will seek to detail how X differs and shares similarities with Y. An analytic paper will aim to break down a concept/process into it component parts so as to determine the actual parts that exist, their functions, structure and implications. Analysis involves breaking something down into its components and discovering the parts that make up the whole. However, it is clear that this step will only occur when the reader has a good grasp on the language of critical reading. As such, those readers who are new to a discipline could be expected to have difficulty with the above terms with regard to their academic definition. Further, students of low self-efficacy may find themselves confronted by academic terminology and 'jingoism' to the extent that they do not believe themselves able to comprehend what the text will be about. Fairbrain goes on to suggest that the next step in before-reading is to scrutinize the table of contents to better understand the overall organization of the material - what order the material will be presented in, and so what the reader can expect to find. This aids the reader to make tentative links between subjects and to begin to formulate an interpretation of the text. This may reveal a text written in a chronological order, with successive major events and stages presented one after the other. Or the material may be presented in a classificatory manner, so that paragraphs are divided into major themes that are immediately distinguishable. Alternatively, the paragraphs may be arranged to present material so that the most important issue comes last, after the previous paragraphs have built up a strong argument to support the main issue. For those students who are not adept at organizing themselves or their own writing material may not initially recognize the logic of the structure of the content's table. Again, this small task in itself may be a large hurdle for those who are new to studying, or who lack self-confidence in their ability to comprehend the reading task before them. Fairbrain points to the important benefit of also scanning headings and sub-headings to complement the skimming of the contents. This will aid the reader to mentally 'map' the material and begin their navigation of the text with greater confidence. To aid this mental orientation, Fairbrain recommends that graphs, tables and other diagrams are also taken into consideration. However, he ignores the potential for confusion at this step as the ability to read visual information at an academic level has a great degree of difficulty, many people are not able to read graphs and in fact fear statistics of any kind. Perhaps the most helpful before-reading strategy that Fairbrain provides is the suggestion that the reader peruse summaries and questions provided at the end of a chapter, or the abstract and discussion of a research article. This will provide the reader with a succinct overviews of the presented materials that is likely to aid their conceptualization of what they are about to read. However, it is also likely to gloss over the finer details and perhaps also leave these details unrelated to the over goal of the material. Hence, the reader may not be greatly informed by this step during their preparation to read, although they will have the opportunity to be exposed to new terms and explanations that will not seem so foreign when reading the actual text. Another example of this before-reading strategy is more formally known as the Anticipation Guide (Durso & Coggins, 1991). Again the aim of this method is to draw upon prior knowledge of the reader to aid them to better accommodate or assimilate new material that they will encounter within the text. The use of an Anticipation Guide will also help the reader to be aware of the effects of their personal perspective when formulating an interpretation of the text. Research concurs that a skillful reader will go into "anticipation mode" when they approach a text due to the strategies they have developed to aid them in preparation for reading (Beers, 2000). As such, they will examine aspects of the material, such as the contents table, summaries and visuals. It is expected that readers who have greater difficulty with engaging with a text can use an Anticipatory Guide to have a 'heads up' of the major themes that will be presented and so be drawn into the material. An Anticipation Guide can be constructed by a teacher with a series of statements for the student to agree or disagree with. In this way the student is able to focus on prior knowledge and see that they do bring something to the material (Durso & Coggins, 1991). The reader can be encouraged in their endeavors to clarify their interpretations of an issue prior to reading and then compare these conclusions with what the writer presents them within the text. During-Reading Strategies The process of reading itself requires the reader to attend closely to how the ideas of the writer develop within the text. However, this does not require that every single word be read (Beers, 2000). Rather, when reading in an active manner the student is encouraged to write in the margins, to highlight phrases, and to compose summaries of the paragraphs read so as to take note of major and minor points and to link them in a logical manner in their own words (Fairbrain, 2000). To enable this process to occur critical reading skills are drawn on. So that the reader must ask themselves; is this a logical argument Is it biased in any way Has the writer provided sufficient evidence to support their conclusions Is the information dated However this is not an easy process and may take years to develop into a 'skill'. Especially, students who have not encountered academic materials before are unlikely to know what a 'logical argument' is, let alone be able to identify it and to state where the logic is flawed. Without the experience of writing themselves, readers will find it difficult to critically analyze the writing of another. Present day students are not normally versed in philosophical debate due to the modern necessity of education systems cramming in a wealth of material in a short space of time (Biggs, 1999). Recognizing a valid argument as one in which the premises are true so that the conclusion is most likely true (or quite likely to be true) is a skill in itself. Simply asking a reader to undertake this exercise does not enable the reader to be able to do so. Further, as a valid argument may not provide a conclusion that is in fact true, due to false/incorrect premises, so the reader needs to be able to differentiate between a valid and a 'sound' argument, again a process that requires time to cultivate within a reader. So that the ability to demonstrate the 'truth' of a writer's conclusion, and to point to the roles of premises and inferences to demonstrate where and why a link exists when it does, is certain to be beyond most undergraduate students without adequate instruction. The ability to identify bias when it exists in writing is another feature of critical reading that takes time and instruction to develop. Bias, the slanted perspective of writing may be wither favorable or unfavorable and lack reason for being presented in either form. Language can in itself be biased given the historical and geographical circumstances of its development. In general, the dominant groups within a society draw on language to maintain the status quo of their having the power, and so language can be used to disempower others. This may occur in either a blatant or subtle manner, but it is able to influence the reader's interpretation of text (as well as speech). For example, written bias may deny individuality or equality to others by way of using stereotypes. Readers need instruction to be able to identify bias in language, such as sexual bias (writing 'sexual orientation' is preferred to 'sexual preference'); and gender bias (replacing sexist nouns with neutral nouns, such as 'chair' instead of chairman); ethnic bias (ethnic groups are designated by proper nouns, 'Mexican American' instead of 'mexican'). There are also a multitude of biases that can occur within the research process that a student reader will not be able to identify if not instructed in them (Howell, 2000). In fact, undergraduate courses often contain subject classes specifically designed to teach students to be aware of such biases, and they are often encouraged to use an analytic framework to help identify biases. For example, a study may result in an outcome more frequently than other outcomes in an experiment (e.g., observation bias, sampling bias). There may be a deviation of the expected value from the quantity it estimates (e.g., measurement bias). Participants in a study may be inclined to a particular temperament or outlook (e.g., demand characteristic, self-selection bias). Or the primary investigator may be highly personally involved in the study and make an unreasonable distortion of their judgment (e.g., researcher bias). These issues are considered threats to internal and external reliability and validity of a study. Consequently, a study may be able to be replicated with similar results or generalized (make conclusions about a wider population) respectively. However, if the reader is not versed in basics of statistics and research design it is unlikely that they will identify and or understand the bias and the subsequent influences it can have on the writer's conclusions and their own interpretations of the text. To carry out effective during-reading strategies it is necessary that readers practice, and learn form other effective readers, to enact active comprehension strategies. In this way a reader can learn to "think aloud" whilst reading, and to reflect on their own knowledge and understandings of a topic (MacNamara, 2004a; Mosenthal, 2000). It is not enough to expect all students to have the skills for a during-reading strategy, as they may not be able to; be aware of why they are reading the material; develop an overview of what they are reading as they proceed; make predictions about what lies ahead in the text; to read selectively based on their overview; link ideas within the text to previous knowledge; make note of whether their predictions and expectations of the arguments and conclusions are being met; review their previous knowledge when challenged by new ideas that conflict with prior knowledge; determine or discover the meanings of new and unfamiliar words drawing on contextual cues; underline and reread important points so a to make notes and paraphrase and aid recall; evaluate the quality of the text; and to consider the implications of the text (Cordon & Day, 1996). A strategy for during-reading is Anolighting a Text (Duffy et al., 1987). This method helps readers to learn how to highlight a text to become an effective reading tool that does not waste the student's time and energy. It is a combination of efficient highlighting with marginal annotations to aid in the explanation of the highlighted words and phrases. In this way the reader can learn to analyze and interpret elements of the text, and to draw conclusions and make inferences based on explicit and implicit meaning. Firstly, all unnecessary words in a sentence are eliminated using "telegraphic highlighting"; this distills the sentence to its key message, and reduces the review time, as well as strengthening reading comprehension. Multiple colors may aid identification of main ideas or biases or to identify evidence for conclusions. After-Reading Strategies After-reading strategies enable the reader to use textual evidence to support their interpretative claims (Salinger & Fleishman, 2005). The reader is encouraged to use note cards to transcribe their annotations and to organize the claims, evidence and their own interpretations. This is also known as the CEI strategy (Salinger & Fleishman, 2005). The reader is able to review the organizational structure of the read text and to go over the main points and essential ideas of the material in a way similar to the presentation of the writer's ideas in the text. This can aid in developing their own style of logical argument, as well as aiding the reader in recall of the material as they navigate their own 'mental map' of the text. As they enact this process of after-reading the reader can attend to what are considered to be the seven most common organizational patterns of academic work, and so detail their mental map of the material in a broader, deeper and more meaningful way (Salinger & Flieshman, 2005): 1) Make a chronological sequence of ideas and information to note a timeline of events or issues occurred. 2) Compare and contrast the organized information to identify differences and similarities of arguments, analyses and conclusions. 3) Concept/definitions are written out to delineate specific elements and characteristics as well as examples to show the readers explicit understanding of the concept or definition. 4) Descriptions of events or ideas are provided in detail, noting person/s and theories and models that have been used to try and describe the concept/event/phenomenon. 5) Create an episode, or a large amount of the information, and link ideas/events to a time period and specific places/populations and develop the sequence of events/procedures to identify specific causes and consequences. 6) Generalize the more general statements that are supported by evidence and logical argument to larger populations. Alternatively, note why generalizations cannot be made (e.g., due to bias). 7) Establish process/cause-effect to track the steps taken by the writer to develop the overall argument that lead to their outcome or findings, and that explains the consequences of their work. Again, as with the observations of the previous reading-strategies, it is vital that readers be closely instructed on how to undertake such a critical analysis, and perhaps even have the process modeled to them within the classroom or by a more experienced reader. It is essential that readers learn to use after-reading strategies to develop their skills in recognizing organizational patterns, and to learn to apply these patterns themselves with their own written work. Understanding the relationships between works they have read, and the historical and socio-cultural context of the piece will aid reader's awareness of how arguments are constructed and the socio-environmental influences that impact on personal cognitive processes. After-reading can help the reader to integrate what is read provided that the reader is carefully instructed in the procedure. Students are able to demonstrate the depth of their understanding of material, and in this way also develop their self-efficacy at being able to interpret and draw logical conclusions from the text. The example provided of an after-reading strategy is just one of the incredibly flexible strategies that exists to provide opportunities for student's creativity in developing their own reading, writing and analytic styles. The ability for a reader to be able to critically evaluate read materials, and to determine their accuracy, relevance and usefulness will empower them to be better thinkers, writers and readers. Implications for Teaching Practices It is clear that informed reading strategies are essential to enable readers of non-fictional text to have enhanced awareness and use of effective strategies (MacNamara, 2004b). Metacognition can be promoted by way of direct instruction within the classroom according to numerous studies (e.g., Mosenthall, 2000; Pressley et al., 1992; Song, Koszalka, & Grabowski, 2005). Critically, active reading strategies can enable students to self-explain academic works in a much more efficient way than passively reading and not engaging with the text. The use of a different set of techniques in order for readers to navigate texts from multiple starting and stopping points; to interpret charts, tables and other graphical expressions of data; and to be comfortable with skimming, skipping and scanning text (Kenyon & Reiser, 2005). Formal training is not required by teachers in order to make a difference to the reading strategies of their students, although it can make a dramatic difference in confidence and the 'tools' available to communicate to student readers. Simple instructional models within the classroom can encourage student engagement with the text and enhance their comprehension of new materials (Pressley et al., 1992). To be of the most effective, these instructional models can be combined with class curriculum to parallel the learning experiences of the students, for example, demonstrating how to Anolight when collecting research for a literature review. This will also aid them in developing their own thesis and arguments, and help to identify design strengths and weaknesses in order to construct their own research or review papers. Facilitating students in developing their own reading strategies and so enhance their ability to understand content, and to draw on this understanding to practically apply new knowledge (Salinger & Flieshman, 2005). Active engagement strategies for readers can help readers to learn content, concepts and processes of texts and to experience as learners the techniques and strategies that are recommended by writers to achieve a particular outcome. Aiding students in their appreciation, valuing and application of research-based practices is contended to be most effective when accompanied by modeling of reflective practices (L'Allier & Ellish, 2007). The goal of reflection is to; make relevant the discipline of science to the reader's everyday life; to encourage an interest in science and in scientific inquiry; to help them to develop a questioning attitude toward new information; to support their development of their awareness of their ability to build on knowledge; to challenge their viewpoints; and to identify their own strengths and weaknesses in learning. Also, the student is able to make concrete and tangible the learning of abstract ideas and theories form text. They are able to draw on their conceptions of science to assist them with problem-solving and investigating scientific questions (Kenyon & Reiser, 2005; Song, Koszalka, & Grabowski, 2005). It would also aid their use of scientific language and their ability to communicate their understanding of a given topic, their values and attitudes towards science, working with others and of their own learning potential, by building on their earlier knowledge and understanding in a creative and self-determining way. Conclusion Reading strategies such as those for before-, during- and after-reading encourage and strengthens a reader's ability to interpret, link and apply new knowledge presented in a text. It also aids them to identify areas of their present knowledge that allow them to understand unfamiliar information. Ultimately, the reading strategies presented in this paper promote a diversity of thought amongst student readers that fosters their personal reading, writing and research design capabilities. Further, reading strategies such as these can enhance a reader's self-confidence in their ability to contribute to science and the wider community, and provide them with the self-knowledge that they do have the cognitive skills to make a difference in the world - even if it is simply through the analysis of text and communication of their findings. Reading strategies encompass the holistic engagement with non-fiction materials to enable the reader to grasp the main points of a text, and to draw on their prior understanding of a subject to critically analyze the arguments, evidence and conclusions that they read. Ultimately reading and constructing meaning form any text is a complex and active process, so it is necessary that teachers learn, practice and model strategies that will allow student's to become more responsible for their own learning experiences. References Beers, K. (2000) Reading Skills and Strategies: Reaching reluctant readers. Austin: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 2000. 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