Training undergraduate engineering students to read research articles: A qualitative think-aloud study

Abstract

The ability to read research articles is considered an essential skill for undergraduate students. However, previous works on explicitly training engineering undergraduates in reading the specific genre is scarce. This paper presents the findings of a qualitative pre-test/post-test think-aloud study that aimed to explore the possible reading behavior changes of four Greek undergraduate engineering students who received genre analysis and metacognitive strategy training for one academic semester. Our findings suggest that the course enhanced students' familiarity with the research article genre and benefited their reading strategy use.