The overarching goal of this paper is to contribute to our understanding of the interplay between students’ disciplinary engagement and their identity construction. The term appropriation, borrowed from scholars in linguistics and education, was chosen to capture this broader sense of productive learning that sits at the nexus of disciplinary engagement and identity. Appropriation implies productive learning including deep conceptual understanding, but it also involves a reflexive process of populating scientific discourse with personal intentions, purposes and tastes that allow a student to embody scientific discourse and concepts in a way that is authentic and personal. The core aim of this paper is to transform the term appropriation into a theoretical construct by means of an analytic process of defining, operationalizing and testing the definition against student interview and classroom data. Five discourse markers for operationalizing the construct of appropriation were discovered through this process. Appropriation, in our study, implies students’ discourse is (1) an expression of a personal “signature” ideas, (2) grounded in the discipline, (3) thick, in that it involves a metacognitive and epistemological dimension, (4) non-incidental, in the sense of being consistently used throughout classroom activities and (5) a carrier of social relationships, in that it positions the student within the classroom community. The study is grounded in data from an extended intervention on thermodynamics in a class of 20 students (17 years old) from a scientifically-oriented secondary school in Italy (grade 12).

The goal of this article is to contribute to understanding the interplay between students' disciplinary engagement and their identity construction. The term appropriation, borrowed from scholars in linguistics and education, was chosen to capture this broader sense of productive learning that sits at the nexus of disciplinary engagement and identity. Appropriation implies deep conceptual understanding, but it also involves a reflexive process of transforming scientific discourse in a way that is authentic and personal. The core aim of this article is to turn the term appropriation into a theoretical construct by means of an analytic process of defining, operationalizing, and testing the definition against student interview and classroom data. Five discourse markers for operationalizing appropriation were discovered through this process. Appropriation, in our study, implies students’ discourse is (A) an expression of a personal “signature“ idea, (B) grounded in the discipline, (C) thick, in that it involves a metacognitive and epistemological dimension, (D) non-incidental, in the sense of being consistently used throughout classroom activities, and (E) a carrier of social relationships, in that it positions the student within classroom. The study is grounded in an extended intervention on thermodynamics in an Italian secondary school class (grade 12).

Defining and Operationalizing Appropriation for Science Learning

LEVRINI, OLIVIA;FANTINI, PAOLA;TASQUIER, GIULIA;PECORI, BARBARA;
2015

Abstract

The goal of this article is to contribute to understanding the interplay between students' disciplinary engagement and their identity construction. The term appropriation, borrowed from scholars in linguistics and education, was chosen to capture this broader sense of productive learning that sits at the nexus of disciplinary engagement and identity. Appropriation implies deep conceptual understanding, but it also involves a reflexive process of transforming scientific discourse in a way that is authentic and personal. The core aim of this article is to turn the term appropriation into a theoretical construct by means of an analytic process of defining, operationalizing, and testing the definition against student interview and classroom data. Five discourse markers for operationalizing appropriation were discovered through this process. Appropriation, in our study, implies students’ discourse is (A) an expression of a personal “signature“ idea, (B) grounded in the discipline, (C) thick, in that it involves a metacognitive and epistemological dimension, (D) non-incidental, in the sense of being consistently used throughout classroom activities, and (E) a carrier of social relationships, in that it positions the student within classroom. The study is grounded in an extended intervention on thermodynamics in an Italian secondary school class (grade 12).
2015
Olivia Levrini;Paola Fantini;Giulia Tasquier;Barbara Pecori;Mariana Levin
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/11585/485982
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