Scientific Writing in Undergraduate Science Curricula: Reading and Analyzing Research Articles to Support Physics and Biology Students’ Written Argument Construction

Scientific writing has a central role in scientific practice. Undergraduate students starting their science studies, like biology, should therefore develop their scientific writing skills. However, writing poses several challenges to many students. In the research presented in this thesis, we argue for the importance of integrating writing instruction more structurally in undergraduate science programs. For the purpose of the research, we developed a teaching strategy to support first-year science students in their scientific writing, specifically their written argument construction. The core of the teaching strategy is based on the assumption that articles, in which researchers justify their conclusions carefully, could serve as a model to help students in constructing a written argument. The students were introduced to research articles’ arguments using a heuristic and reading, analyzing, and writing activities. We implemented the teaching strategy in a physics and a biology course for first-year undergraduate students. We evaluated the impact of the teaching strategy by analyzing students’ written texts, interviewing students and course lecturers, and by administering a questionnaire to students. The findings showed that the teaching strategy helped students in writing texts based on research articles. With the research presented in the thesis, we give scientific writing a more prominent position in science courses and encourage faculty members and administrators to include writing instruction in undergraduate science curricula.