School language and STEM

Researcher Ursina Markwalder

With two research projects, we investigate language use in educational settings (school language) and its interactions with learning and knowledge construction processes in STEM subjects. Both projects are subprojects of the Swiss STEM study.

The first project aims to analyze language use in different contexts and how this use influences the encoding and retrieval of knowledge. This project includes a deep analysis of linguistic structures of adaptive language use in formal educational contexts in comparison to informal contexts, specifically, the production and the processing of generic statements (for preliminary results, see Markwalder, 2014). Existing research indicates that generic language might benefit encoding as well as abstraction and generalization of knowledge. Therefore, we plan to test whether these specific linguistic structures indeed lead to the construction of knowledge representations that allow for enduring conceptual knowledge development (including the abilities to reason inductively and deductively).

The second project aims to analyze the co-development of language competencies and conceptual understanding in STEM subjects. The focus of this project is on children with a foreign language background and/or a low socio-economic status (SES). On the one hand, these children might be disadvantaged from having to understand and produce the precise language required in STEM subjects. On the other hand, these children might also benefit from these requirements as they provide an additional resource for improving language competencies alongside subjects dedicated specifically to language. In a nutshell, this project will contribute to a better understanding of the interaction between language competencies and conceptual understanding in STEM subjects in due consideration of different language abilities and social backgrounds.