A proposal, centered on the notion of lexical richness, for the study of the instructive content of school scientific explanations

Authors

  • Guillermo Cutrera
  • Marta Massa
  • Silvia Stipcich

Keywords:

Scientific explanations, Lexical richness, Writing in Science

Abstract

Assuming that the quality of a school scientific explanation is linked to the lexical richness of the text produced, in this paper we introduce a device capable of analyzing it. The device was implemented in order to analyze the lexical richness of the contents of two school scientific explanations on an everyday phenomenon, constructed during a Physical Chemistry high school classroom. Two quantitative measures were used: lexical density and appearance interval, being both notional content terms. These measures were supplemented with the assessment of categorized and embedded clusters as semantic criteria. The constraints of quantitative measures and expansion of the content reading are discussed through the inclusion of semantic criteria.

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Published

2022-12-21

Issue

Section

Trabajos presentados a SIEF

How to Cite

A proposal, centered on the notion of lexical richness, for the study of the instructive content of school scientific explanations. (2022). Journal of Physics Teaching, 34, 119-126. https://revistas.unc.edu.ar/index.php/revistaEF/article/view/39805