The Impact of a Systemic Functional Linguistics-Based Science Text and a Conventional Science Text on Students’Reading Comprehension

Author: Shih-Wen Chen, Wen-Gin Yang(Graduate Institute of Science Education, National Taiwan Normal University)

Vol.&No.：Vol. 51, No.1
Date：October 2006
Pages：107-124
DOI：10.6300/JNTNU.2006.51.05

Abstract：

The purpose of this study was to explore the effects of different science texts on students’ reading comprehension, as analyzed from the perspective of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL). Two texts were designed that the SFL text (ST) was designed by the theory of technicality construction and genre organization in SFL for the ST group, and the Conventional Text (CT) was the standard secondary school text for the CT group. Prior Knowledge Test (PKT) and the Reading Comprehension Test (RCT), the instruments, were designed to probe the students’ prior knowledge and reading comprehension. There were two experiments. The first analyzed the speed of reading and answering RCT for both groups, while the second compared the reading comprehension level in the two groups.
According to the results, students in the ST group spent a significantly longer reading and answering time on the RCT, which implied that much more effort was needed by them to read and answer this test carefully. Additionally, the reading comprehension in the ST group was better than that in the CT group. Furthermore, the performance of the low prior knowledge students in the ST group was significantly better than that in the CT group in terms of the literacy, inference, and application. These results implied that the ST could facilitate the students’ reading comprehension, especially for those low prior knowledge students. 

Keywords：Systemic Functional Linguistics, science text, reading comprehension

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