Teaching APA Style Documentation: Discovery Learning, Scaffolding and Procedural Knowledge

Students struggle with learning correct documentation style as found in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association and teachers are often at a loss for how to best instruct students in correct usage of APA style. As such, the first part of this paper discusses the current resea...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of Instructional Research Vol. 4; pp. 69 - 75
Main Authors Skeen, Thomas, Zafonte, Maria
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Center for Innovation in Research and Teaching at Grand Canyon University 15.08.2015
Subjects
Citations (References)
College Instruction
Discovery Learning
Documentation
Learning Activities
Learning Theories
Scaffolding (Teaching Technique)
Teaching Methods
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Summary:Students struggle with learning correct documentation style as found in the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association and teachers are often at a loss for how to best instruct students in correct usage of APA style. As such, the first part of this paper discusses the current research on teaching documentation styles as well as the learning theory behind discovery learning and scaffolding and advocates for using these lenses to address student problems with APA style. The second half of this paper provides practical exercises (called microthemes), grounded in sound pedagogy, that instructors can use in both a traditional ground classroom or in online and blended instructional models. This paper is aimed at not just instructors in a composition or research methods course who regularly teach APA style to students, but also to the frustrated psychology or science teacher who finds student submissions riddled with APA errors.
ISSN:2159-0281
DOI:10.9743/JIR.2015.9