Abstract When reading scientific text, readers must draw inferences when the author does not make relations explicit; readers also need to pick up on causal relations that the author does make explicit. We collected think-aloud protocols from 86 undergraduate biology students reading 7 brief, illustrated passages about the immune system. After reading, participants typed a free recall. Both think-aloud and recall were transcribed and coded for two types of causal language—specific action verbs and explicit causal terms (forms of the word “cause”)—as well as inferences. Inferences in recalls were significantly related to action verbs picked up and during reading, as evidenced by the think-alouds. Action verbs in recalls were significantly facilitated by inferences and pick up of action verbs articulated by the participants while reading, as evidenced by the think-alouds. Explicit causal terms in recalls were significantly facilitated by pick up of action verbs while reading. Results suggest a very important role for pick-up of specific action verbs while reading, and risks associated with learners substituting vague verbs of class membership (“is a,” “has a”) for highly specific action verbs (“activates,” “binds”) when learning biology. One possible implication is that prompting students to pick up on specific action verbs while reading biology texts—in addition to making inferences during reading—could prompt more benefit from reading these types of texts.

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阅读科学文本期间和之后的因果语言和推论

摘要阅读科学论文时，当作者没有明确表述关系时，读者必须做出推论。读者还需要了解作者确实明确指出的因果关系。我们从86位本科生的生物学学生那里收集了有关思考方法的文章，这些学生阅读了7篇关于免疫系统的简短图解说明。阅读后，参与者输入免费回忆。思维和回忆都被转录和编码为两种类型的因果语言，即特定的动作动词和明确的因果关系术语（“原因”一词的形式）以及推论。回忆的推论与拾起的动作动词和阅读过程中的动词有很大的关系，如思维方式所证明的。回忆和回忆中的动作动词大大地促进了参与者在阅读，阅读，正如思想思维所证明的那样。阅读时拾起动作动词可显着促进回忆中的显式因果关系。结果表明，阅读时拾起特定动作动词具有非常重要的作用，而学习者将班级成员的模糊动词（“是”，“有”）替换为高度特定的动作动词（“激活”，“结合”）。一种可能的含义是，提示学生在阅读生物学课本时要选择特定的动作动词，除了在阅读过程中进行推理外，还可以从阅读这些课文中获得更多的收益。和学习者在学习生物学时用班级成员的模糊动词（“是”，“有”）替换为非常具体的动作动词（“激活”，“绑定”）相关的风险。一种可能的含义是，提示学生在阅读生物学课本时要选择特定的动作动词，除了在阅读过程中进行推理外，还可以从阅读这些课文中获得更多的收益。以及与学习者在学习生物学时用模糊的班级成员动词（“是”，“有”）替换为非常具体的动作动词（“激活”，“绑定”）相关的风险。一种可能的含义是，提示学生在阅读生物学课本时要选择特定的动作动词，除了在阅读过程中进行推理外，还可以从阅读这些课文中获得更多的收益。