Theorizing Mental Models in Disciplinary Writing Ecologies through Scholarship, Talk-Aloud Protocols, and Semi-Structured Interviews
Year: 2014
Type: article
Abstract: This project explores how disciplinary habits of mind are circulated through forms of representation to instantiate English Studies disciplines, institutions which then shape scholars' practices for producing knowledge.Using a critical discourse analysis on scholarship, semi-structured interviews, and a talk-aloud protocol, I find that scholars' thinking and writing rely heavily on mental models.Scholars employ small-scale working representations of dynamic systems to help them reason through disciplinary problem spaces, including research questions and composing issues.Unlike the sciences, English Studies fields have not fully exploited mental models in research and teaching; nor have they been considered fully in writing studies' research on cognition and writing.In order to understand the role of mental models in writing and disciplinarity, I employ ecology theory to link the representational nature of mind to external media.
Author: Laural L. Adams
Institution: Bowling Green State University
Language: English
Subfield: Linguistics and Language
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Quality education
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W317436603