“He drank too much Gatorade”: Exploring learner conceptions in scientific reasoning from a social semiotic perspective

This study employed the social semiotic perspective and, in particular, thematic patterns theory which emphasizes the potential of language in constructing knowledge and views scientific concepts as institutionalized patterning of social semiotic resources. It examined (1) how patterns of semantic relations could help reveal students’ development of their scientific claims and (2) what factors may contribute to students’ thematic patterning. This study was situated in an undergraduate biology classroom in Canada and focused on a written biology task about water intoxification. With data collected from students’ writing and teaching materials, it revealed the divergent emergence of learner conceptions in the form of thematic patterns and identified three influential factors: (1) teachers’ pedagogical cut, (2) students’ knowledge transfer, and (3) the relationality, temporality, and locality of scientific reasoning in biology. This study demonstrates the effectiveness of thematic patterns theory in exploring learner conceptions and also bears pedagogical implications.