Claire Chang
Pronouns: she/her
Research Mentor(s): Nicole Gardner-Neblett
Research Mentor School/College/Department: LSA Psychology / LSA
Program: UROPF
Session: Session 5 (2:40pm – 3:30pm)
Authors: Hannah Chang, Kelly Bakulski, John Dou
Abstract
Expository discourse is a key component to academic success. A student’s ability to produce and comprehend expository passages becomes increasingly important as he or she processes through his or her educational career (Lundine, 2020). To further understand college students’ expository abilities in different forms, this study examines participants’ expository discourse production in procedural and informational scenarios. Hypothesis: College-aged students will use more microstructurally complex discourse when describing the contents of an informational book than a procedural book. Method: In exchange for college credit, 50 undergraduate students in Psychology participated in this study. The students were shown two different wordless photo books. One presented a procedure: how to use fingerprints to make art. The second book was informational, providing information about different types of spiders. After seeing the pages of each book, the participants were asked to use expository discourse to, page by page, pretend to “read” the books. They received no other instructions, and therefore had to interpret and explain the books on their own. These discourse sessions were transcribed using SALT conventions. They were then analyzed on a microstructural level, focusing on total number of words used, number of different words used, the mean length of each utterance, and syntactic complexity. The data from each type of discourse was then compared. The results of this comparison reveal common characteristics of expository discourse and allow researchers to understand the differences in the features that college students use in informational versus procedural discourse. Understanding these differences is important for educators to support students to form strong expository skills.
