EFL Engineering Students’ Research Article Genre Knowledge Development through Concept Mapping Tasks: A Qualitative Interview-based Study

Abstract

This qualitative study explores how the use of concept mapping can function as a genre knowledge scaffold within an experimental course that aimed to teach EFL undergraduate students how to read primary research articles in their discipline. Using semi-structured student interviews, the study explored the development of the rhetorical, formal, process and content research article genre facets of three second-year Electrical and Computer Engineering students after working collaboratively on three specially designed concept mapping tasks underpinned by the theories of genre analysis and metacognition. Our data suggest that the process of visual conceptualization encouraged students to engage in deeper forms of genre analysis and explore the different dimensions of the multifaced research article genre construct.