What is a "good" scientific article? Students’ from the Electrical Engineering undergraduate course’s conceptions

Abstract

This paper aims to identify the conceptions of scientific article used by the Electrical Engineering students of a Brazilian federal university. Despite valuable contributions that were made in learning materials related to teaching students how to write this genre of text, there is a lack of research on communicative goals and specific social meanings of scientific articles produced and published in different areas of knowledge. In order to help fill in this blank, this study focuses on examining transcripts of semi-structured interviews with students of one of these areas, electrical engineering, and examining their viewpoints. A qualitative approach was used, as well as an experiential perspective based on a content analysis methodology. The data analysis shows that there are two perceptions these students have about what is expected from a “good” scientific article: the article as a social practice and the article as a sociopolitical practice. The results achieved in this work may contribute to broaden the debate on the production of academic genres in different areas of knowledge, based on the conceptions of undergraduate students themselves.