Summary of Process Types in PBLs

The consideration of the process types as exemplified in the keywords further emphasises the focus on procedures and natural processes found in the semantic groupings. They indicate not only the concerns of this applied discipline, i.e. to find causes of genetic conditions and the treatment and the protocols associated with these but also the specific pedagogy underlying problem-based learning.

This latter point is most evident in PBL1s with the mental process types but also to an extent in PBL2s with reference to findings from independent study. The change in focus from exploration and questioning in PBL1s to more specific procedures and identifying casual connections in PBL2s also reflects the specific aims of the staging in a PBL cycle.

In PBL1s, the students’ representation of their inner states and thoughts are also clearly reflected in the mental process type verbs. This type of process is much less prominent in PBL2s. This may be because students are concentrating more on conveying the subject matter, or because the focus of the second stage is not on hypothesising and sharing potential knowledge, but more on demonstrating learning from background reading through discussion of specific processes and procedures. In this way, the pedagogical focus and aims align neatly with the focus of the discipline (i.e. the aim being to identify and discuss relevant subject content).

Students represent natural processes of the human system and procedures used by geneticists mainly through material process types. Where verbs have been nominalised, these nominalised participants also quite commonly co-occur with other keywords and also material processes. This again reflects also the applied nature of medical genetics: activity is prominent and emphasised. Relational processes are found, although at least in relation to keywords are less frequent;

they are used to identify specific features and characteristics.

The results here reflect previous findings of studies that have found that the process types reflect specific concerns of the genre and subject matter. Da Silva and Dennick (2010) also found changes in focus, for example students talking about diseases in the early stage of a PBL cycle, moving on to more specific treatments in later stages. While Love (1993) identified a schematic structure related to processes and products in geology reflected in the transitivity system, in PBLs we find a concern with natural processes and procedures. Where

Martinez (2001) found different processes reflecting different aims of stages in research articles, including a focus on action in the methods section, in PBLs we also find a move from the more general and exploratory questioning in PBL1s to the more specific focus on practical procedures in PBL2s. In both stages, actions and active constructions are common. These points reflect the specific spoken register and also the different aims of each stage.

4.7 Chapter Summary

The study of the keywords aimed to identify the distinct ‘aboutness’ of the PBLs in relation to a reference corpus of academic seminars and lectures from a range of domains. The proportion of keywords that can be identified as academic, either core or technical, the semantic grouping exercise, and study of process types all contribute to this picture of aboutness.

We can see here that both the subject matter and the type of interaction, particularly the informal and interactive nature of PBL1s, are clearly illustrated in the keywords, not least in the higher proportion of high frequency words, including those which specifically indicate oral interaction (e.g., response

words) and semi-lexical items. We can also see the specific focus and link in content between each stage in the PBL cycle illustrated in the keywords.

The academic technical words clearly identify the specialist subject area. Here we also see a preponderance of nouns, common in academic discourse and highlighting the centrality of the subject matter. These words also give insights into the specific concerns and focus of this field. In both stages we find

keywords related to natural processes and procedures, becoming more

specialised and varied in the second stage. In PBL2s we see a higher number of keywords, to be expected in a larger corpus. This not only reflects the subject area but also the purpose of the communicative event: sharing their findings from research and thus extending their knowledge. The AC keywords were also seen to closely align to the discipline, although no significant differences in terms of part of speech or meaning were identified in the explorations carried out here.

The semantic grouping and the exploration of processes reflected many of the academic functions identified in Chapter 3, i.e. describing conditions, natural processes and procedures, illustrating the disciplinary concerns and focus in medical genetics.

The study of process types also reflected the focus of this applied

field/discipline, the epistemology of PBL and the specific type of communicative event. In the study of process types found in the AT, AC and HF keyword lexical verbs and nominalised forms, the most notable difference between PBL1s and PBL2s is the inclusion of a number of mental processes, with the stance and internal concerns of the speakers more prominent in PBL1s. The students are more focussed on reflections and suggestions in PBL1s compared with a more concentrated focus on reporting on precise content in PBL2s. This reflects both the epistemology and also the type of interaction in each stage of the cycle.

This chapter has only considered positive keywords in PBLs and does not look at total word frequency or coverage in relation to academic word lists. However, the keyword approach has provided a distinct set of items that inform us about the concerns of the subject matter and the mode of communication. They also

indicate the way in which students start to position themselves as an active member of the profession through their use of active constructions and

particularly personal pronouns. The use of personal pronouns is the subject of the next chapter.