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William & Ida Friday Institute for Educational Innovation

Operationalizing and validating disciplinary literacy in secondary education

The goal of this study was to define the construct and establish the validity of disciplinary literacy, which has recently gained attention from the implementation of the Common Core State Standards (National Governors Association Center for Best Practices & Council of Chief State School Officers in Common Core State Standards for English language arts & literacy in history/social studies, science, and technical subjects [PDF]. Authors, Washington, DC, 2010). After defining disciplinary literacy in the four core disciplines of English language arts, science, history and social studies, and mathematics, scales were developed and administered to a snowball sample of professionals nationwide, with 857 respondents. The data showed evidence of disciplinary literacy as a multidimensional construct with three related factors: source literacy, analytic literacy, and expressive literacy. Based on EFA and CFA results, we can conclude that there are at least three types of literacy in operation among the four core disciplines. The three factors of literacy varied significantly by the four core disciplines of English/language arts (ELA), science, history and social studies, and mathematics, supporting the notion that each discipline uses literacy uniquely. This is the first study of its kind to attempt to define, quantify, and validate the construct of disciplinary literacy.

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Authors and Contributors

Dr Hiller A. Spires Dr Hiller A. Spires

No Photo Available Dr John Kelly Lee

Teams

New Literacies Collaborative New Literacies Collaborative

Projects

Disciplinary Literacy for Deeper Learning Course

This course explores what it means to read, write, speak and listen for learning and creating knowledge across disciplines, including science, mathematics, history/social studies and English/language arts.

Published

February 11, 2020

Resource Type

Journal Article

Published By

Friday Institute for Educational Innovation

Suggested Citation

Spires, H., Kerkhoff, S., Graham, A., Thompson, I., & Lee, J. (2018). Operationalizing and validating disciplinary literacy in secondary education. Reading and Writing: An Interdisciplinary Journal, 31(6), 1401 – 1434.