A Comparative Analysis of Elementary Students' Content Understanding and Perceptions by Different Types of Informational Science Texts

정보적 과학 텍스트의 유형에 따른 초등학생들의 내용 이해도와 인식 비교

The purpose of this study was to compare the effects of two different types of texts, which were narrative and expository, on the understanding of content. Elementary students' perceptions of the two types of the texts were also investigated. In the comparison of the effects on the understanding of the text contents, test scores of mind-mapping, closed-answer question, and essay test were used. The analyses of mind-mapping tests showed narrative text was more effective to figure out main concepts of the text throughout the mind-mapping test. But expository text was more effective in the hierarchical organization of the concepts. In the closed-answer questions and essay test, narrative text was more effective than expository text. However when the contents of text were difficult and complex, there was no meaningful difference between the two types of texts. The analyses of students' perceptions of the texts showed that narrative texts were preferred. Students perceived that the narrative text was more interesting and familiar. However, the perceptions of helpful text for their science learning were not different by the types of texts.