New Perspectives in Science Education

Beyond language proficiency, the aim of writing courses for second-language learners of English is to develop a variety of skills collectively referred to as “critical thinking”. Achieving this outcome is shown to be more likely among students that utilize high-level strategies for studying (deep approach) in contrast to those who apply the low cognitive approach of learning by rote (surface approach). In the present research, we explored the applicability of the revised two-factor Study Process Questionnaire (R-SPQ-2F) in evaluating the study approach engaged by students to accomplish a writing task. The participants were students in a compulsory English writing course for science students at a Japanese university. Students were assigned to construct a scientific report in the Introduction-Methodology-Results-Discussion format based on an original experiment. The R-SPQ-2F was reworded to suit the writing task, translated into Japanese, and completed voluntarily by 210 participants – all were non-native speakers of English. Results of the analysis revealed reliability of the scales with Chronbach’s alpha values of 0.883 for deep approach and 0.899 for surface approach. Confirmatory factor analysis using CFI and RMSEA indicate a good fit of the responses to the item parcel-based two-factor model. Work done here for adapting the R-SPQ-2F has resulted in a task-specific questionnaire that teachers can use for writing programs in the Japanese tertiary environment.

Keywords: Study process, academic writing, learning approach, R-SPQ-2F;

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