The influence of scientific text formats on text comprehension and epistemological beliefs of educational science students

Abstract

This study examines whether adapted primary literature, a newly introduced scientific text format, promotes both text comprehension and elaborate epistemological beliefs. In a randomised experiment, 74 students of educational science read primary scientific literature, adapted primary literature or a textbook text. Participants who read the adapted primary literature displayed a better text comprehension and elaborated epistemological beliefs concerning the dimension of source of knowledge than students who read the other two text formats. With regard to the other epistemological dimensions, no differences were found. It is discussed what use adapted primary literature has for higher education research-based teaching and learning.