Lundine Jennifer P, Harnish Stacy M, McCauley Rebecca J, Blackett Deena Schwen, Zezinka Alexandra, Chen Wei, Fox Robert A
Department of Speech & Hearing Science, The Ohio State University, Columbus.
Division of Clinical Therapies & Inpatient Rehabilitation Program, Nationwide Children's Hospital, Columbus, OH.
Lang Speech Hear Serv Sch. 2018 Jul 5;49(3):551-568. doi: 10.1044/2018_LSHSS-17-0105.
Summarizing expository passages is a critical academic skill that is understudied in language research. The purpose of this study was to compare the quality of verbal summaries produced by adolescents for 3 different discourse types and to determine whether a composite measure of cognitive skill or a test of expressive syntax predicted their performance.
Fifty adolescents listened to, and then verbally summarized, 1 narrative and 2 expository lectures (compare-contrast and cause-effect). They also participated in testing that targeted expressive syntax and 5 cognitive subdomains.
Summary quality scores were significantly different across discourse types, with a medium effect size. Analyses revealed significantly higher summary quality scores for cause-effect than compare-contrast summaries. Although the composite cognitive measure contributed significantly to the prediction of quality scores for both types of expository summaries, the expressive syntax score only contributed significantly to the quality scores for narrative summaries.
These results support previous research indicating that type of expository discourse may impact student performance. These results also show, for the first time, that cognition may play a predictive role in determining summary quality for expository but not narrative passages in this population. In addition, despite the more complex syntax commonly associated with exposition versus narratives, an expressive syntax score was only predictive of performance on narrative summaries. These findings provide new information, questions, and directions for future research for those who study academic discourse and for professionals who must identify and manage the problems of students struggling with different types of academic discourse.
总结说明性篇章是一项重要的学术技能，但在语言研究中却未得到充分研究。本研究旨在比较青少年针对三种不同话语类型所生成的口头总结的质量，并确定认知技能的综合测量指标或表达性句法测试能否预测他们的表现。
五十名青少年聆听了一篇记叙文和两篇说明性讲座（对比和因果关系），然后进行口头总结。他们还参与了针对表达性句法和五个认知子领域的测试。
不同话语类型的总结质量得分存在显著差异，效应量中等。分析显示，因果关系总结的质量得分显著高于对比总结。虽然综合认知测量指标对两种说明性总结的质量得分预测均有显著贡献，但表达性句法得分仅对记叙文总结的质量得分有显著贡献。
这些结果支持了先前的研究，表明说明性话语类型可能会影响学生的表现。这些结果还首次表明，在这一人群中，认知可能在确定说明性而非记叙性篇章的总结质量方面发挥预测作用。此外，尽管说明性篇章通常比记叙文具有更复杂的句法，但表达性句法得分仅能预测记叙文总结的表现。这些发现为研究学术话语的人员以及必须识别和处理在不同类型学术话语中遇到困难的学生问题的专业人员提供了新的信息、问题和未来研究方向。
