A cross-disciplinary approach to language support for first- year students in the science disciplines

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Research and Development in Higher Education Vol. 32: The Student Experience

July, 2009, 715 pages
Published by
Helen Wozniak and Sonia Bartoluzzi
ISBN
0 908557 78 7
Abstract 

A key goal of the study entitled ‘A cross-disciplinary approach to language support for first- year students in the science disciplines’, funded by the Australian Learning and Teaching Council, is to examine the role of language in the learning of science by first-year university students. The disciplines involved are physics, chemistry and biology. This national project also aims to transfer active learning skills, which are widely used in language teaching, to the teaching of science in first year. The paper discusses the background to the study and reports preliminary results on the language difficulties faced by first-year science student cohorts from data collected in 2008 as well as qualitative data was also collected on 2008 students’ attitudes towards online science learning.

Keywords: first-year science teaching, role of language in science teaching, active learning skills