Skriv med egna ord. En studie av läroprocesser när elever i grundskolans senare år skriver "forskningsrapporter"

Sammanfattning: Abstract Nilsson, Nils-Erik, Write in Your Own Words: A Study of Learning Processes in Research Report Writing in School. The thesis examines sixty pupil texts produced in the school activity called pupil research at secondary level of a Swedish school where this activity was scheduled one day per week. The purpose of this thesis is to develop knowledge about the writing done by pupils under the specific conditions of pupil research. The research is done from four different perspectives. First, I discuss the pupils’ use of sources. Secondly, I investigate the pupils’ use of genre. Thirdly, I discuss the pupils understanding of their research topics, and finally I discuss how we are to understand the influx of pupil research as a methodological phenomenon. The study shows that most of the texts can be described as reproduced texts, which imply that the pupil is not the originator of the conveyed thoughts. None of the pupils has produced a text the requested genre of research reports; they have chosen a school genre that is familiar to them depending on whether their purpose has been to account for or to inform or influence. The results indicate that the pupils’ knowledge about the phenomenon they have been studying is very insufficient. Only in a few cases can one say that the pupils draw conclusions. The pupils reproduce facts, often in a fragmentary manner, which indicates that it is doubtful that they have developed any knowledge at all. The fact that students tend to copy texts is discussed from two different perspectives. On the one hand, plagiarism is treated as a problem, and on the other hand, it is discussed from a language development perspective. The fact that school has adopted research as a method is in part explained by the increasingly heterogeneous student population in school, which has led to this form of individualised teaching.