TABLE 1.
Themes encountered during qualitative analysisa
| Subtheme (+/- indicates correct/incorrect) | Working definition | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Theme 1: Thinking tools | ||
| Rereading text one or more times“Rereading” | The participant commented that s/he reread a portion of the text. | I’m gonna go back to the last sentence.—Student |
| Summarizing or recapping“Summarizing” | The participant summarized a portion of the text. | So cats, they can reproduce out of cats, but they can infect all mammals. So everybody gets sick, but only cats can allow them to complete the life cycle.—Faculty |
| Using a reference point/prior knowledge“Prior knowledge” | The participant exhibited prior knowledge or used a reference point in the text while thinking aloud. | The wild animal, um, it’s really hard to collect and have any kind of consistency with wild animals because they come from so many different unknown social backgrounds. And when you’re studying behavior, that’s a really important thing to consider.—Faculty |
| Underlining a key piece of information“Underlining” | The participant underlined a portion of the text. | And whenever I’m reading papers I like to underline like the summary sentences.—Student |
| Taking notes | The participant wrote down notes. | So, I’m gonna write on the side, uhh, let me see, parasites … found … are transmitted through food … transmitted … through … food … exhibit … uhh, manipulation hypotheses.—Student |
| Relying on definition of term provided in article“Relying on definition provided” | In the event that a term was described in the text, a participant indicated that he or she either understood it or noticed it. | Oh, so that’s what they mean by laboratory–wild hybrids.—Student |
| Theme 2: Scientific literacy and process skills | ||
| Understanding research design (+/-)“Research design” | The participant indicated understanding or lack of understanding of research design. | I thought, we’ll get to the t test later then won’t we to compare the two corners. So they did it the way I would have done it, which is a factorial design. [Tilts head to read Figure 1.] And you’ve got infected versus noninfected and you’ve got the four corners. And it is a repeated measure in that case. [Nods head.] Sure, because each rat is going to invest[igate], could potentially go into all four corners and if they don’t go into a corner, they get, they just get a zero.—Faculty |
| Evaluating a scientific argument“Evaluating” | The participant judged the quality of the research or methods in the article and provided a justification. | No. Uh, and, and to explain my answer, there was not enough concrete behavioral evidence to support it. They make statements about studies without really providing any of the evidence that is in those papers. So I don’t have enough to go on to actually make that call. In fact I’m a little, little bit, I’m a little suspicious of the whole, of the whole thing. I think that was obvious when I was talking about the lab rats that they used.—Faculty |
| Analysis (+/-) | The participant verbalized at least one of the following: thoughts indicating that s/he understood relationships in the information presented in the article, analysis of the data the graph depicted, or understanding and interpretation of statistical analysis. | ‘Kay, so it’s saying the T. gondii infected cats had a preference for the cat side is the uh, as opposed to the rabbit side. [Pause] I mean I see what it’s saying, but that graph for some reason isn’t, doesn’t really help me too much. I think the, the wording was best.—Student |
| Theme 3: Comprehension difficulties | ||
| Due to unknown vocabulary/jargon“Jargon” | Participants did not understand the reading because they were unfamiliar with the vocabulary or jargon being used. | I don’t know what “sorties” is.—Faculty |
| Due to lack of knowledge/incorrect knowledge“Lack of knowledge” | Participants expressed that they did not know something and/or speculated about the meaning of it. | So I-V-E-R-M-E-C-T-I-N ivermeectin A-N-T-E-H-E-L-M-I-N-T-I-C, anthelmintic. Uh, MSD-Agvet limited [inaudible segment]. I have, it’s clearly some type of chemical agent. I do not know what it is.—Student |
| Participant becomes distracted focusing on a small detail “Distracted” |
Instead of continuing their reading, participants would become distracted or focused on a small detail that would cause them to not follow through with expressing their understandings aloud. | Student participant: “Parasitic… gondiai [/gondii/]…I don’t know how to say it.”Interviewer: “Gondii is how I say it. Would say it.”Student participant: “Gondii.”Interviewer: “Yeah. Gondii? Gondiai? I don’t know.” |
| Due to wording/sentence structure“Wording” | The wording and/or sentence structure of the article created comprehension difficulties for participants. | Including cat, okay. That’s fine, it just started with a bunch of sources and it like threw me off.—Student |
aThe themes arising from qualitative analysis are shown in bold. The most prevalent subthemes encountered during the analysis are arranged below the themes. Shortened versions of the subtheme names used in the text are shown in quotation marks.