Abstract
The purpose with this study was to investigate how students relate their own experience and conceptions to their understanding of a written task. Recent research show that some crucial concepts that students have about different phenomena's are hard to change if the new information contradicts their previous views. The study is a case-study where the case consists of a written study-task, read and understood by tree female nurse students. These three students were observed and videotaped when thinking aloud about the task. The results indicate three assimilating approaches to the interpretation of the study-task: ‘illuminating, «verifying», and «comparative’. Only the «comparative» approach one observes that he/she is critical to the text being read — for instance by testing the information read against own experience and conceptions and reverse. In the other two approaches the students use more of their own experience in order to confirm that what they already know. They are less critical to the content of the task.
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