Developing a genre-based research article reading module for undergraduate students

Although research articles (henceforth RA) have been widely used in undergraduate teaching as assigned readings or supplementary teaching materials, studies addressing students' challenges in RA reading are infrequent. We conducted a two-cycle action research to examine the effect of genre instruction on RA reading comprehension of Year 3 and 4 undergraduate students in economics. In Cycle 1, students (n = 34) were introduced to move structures of conventional sections, including Introduction, Method, Results, Discussion, and Conclusion; in Cycle 2, students (n = 34) were introduced to a discipline-specific move model of economics. Apart from the conventional sections, the model used in Cycle 2 also describes the rhetorical structure of discipline-specific sections, such as Theoretical Model, Econometric Model, Robustness, and Mechanisms. Summary writing and multiple-choice tests were used to measure students' improvements in reading comprehension. The findings show that Cycle 2 instruction significantly improved students’ performance in summary writing (medium effect size) and multiple-choice tests (small effect size), whereas Cycle 1 instruction did not. Also, fewer students in Cycle 2 perceived cognitive overload challenges than their peers in Cycle 1. The findings can be useful for EAP practitioners teaching similar cohorts of students. •Research articles (RA) are widely used in undergraduate disciplinary teaching.•L2 undergraduate students experience difficulties in RA reading.•Discipline-specific genre-based RA reading instruction improved reading comprehension.•Qualitative evidence suggests that the instruction may have reduced cognitive load.