Using the research article as a model for teaching laboratory report writing provides opportunities for development of genre awareness and adoption of new literacy practices

Abstract The retention and success of students from under-represented groups in University science programmes remains a global issue. Despite increased enrolments, these students still have the greatest rate of attrition. One of the factors that affect success is an inability to navigate the specialized literacies required within the culture of science. Here we present an intervention to develop the disciplinary literacy practices and genre awareness of first year biology students, using the pedagogical genre of the laboratory report. This is one of the most common genres in undergraduate biology and is modeled on the genre of the research article. To help students learn to write laboratory reports, we designed an intervention that included a lecture series around the reading of a research article, a quantitative literacy workshop on data communication and a peer-review workshop. Students received feedback on their reports and had several opportunities to rewrite them. To assess the success of the intervention, the first and final drafts of 20 students' reports were compared and a subgroup of these students was interviewed. Analysis of the reports revealed that most students made significant progress in terms of genre acquisition and development of genre awareness. The interview data confirmed that the intervention brought about enhanced understanding of the genre and notably created opportunities for students to adopt new science-relevant literacy practices.