Examinations of Cognitive Processing of Science Writing Tasks

Context: The current nature of educational research in the discipline of science limits the application of outcomes that can be reached in terms of empirical evidence that supports emerging theory. Objective: Much of the work in science education at all levels is focused on trying to gather evidence to better understand how student learning occurs within the science classroom. Methods: The authors make use of functional near infrared spectroscopy, a non-invasive neuroimaging technique to examine outcomes related to authentic educational tasks. Results: A main effect of writing condition and phase in summary writing and argumentative writing respectively was found. Conclusions: The results of this initial study do highlight the value of using neuroscience to help build understanding of the cognitive processes associated with writing in science. Importantly, the use of the fNIR does provide evidence about the relative strength of processing required in undertaking these different writing tasks. One sentence summary: In this study we demonstrated the ability to distinguish between writing types in science using optical imaging techniques.