An Investigation of the Associations between Professional Tasks and Document Genres in the Context of University Teaching

Abstract

To facilitate faculty`s information use and the design of search systems, this study aimed at identifying the task-genre associations in the context of university teaching. Qualitative citation analysis was first employed to identify the genres faculty used based on citations in their teaching materials. Semi-structured interviews were then employed to collect data regarding the tasks they performed to use different genres. Qualitative content analysis was also employed to analyze interview transcripts. 27 faculty members from different disciplines contributed 28 courses. The task-genre associations this study uncovered illustrate the functions of different genres. The results indicate the teaching tasks participants performed served as the criteria that determined what genres should be included or excluded.

為促進教師之資訊使用與搜尋系統之設計，本研究旨在識別出大學教學情境裡之任務與文體之關聯。作者先以質性引文分析來分析教材裡之引文，以識別出教師使用之文體，再以半結構式訪談來搜集有關教師執行之任務之研究資料，最後以質性內容分析來分析訪談稿。共有二十七名來自不同學科領域之教師貢獻二十八門課程，本研究所揭示之任務與文體之關聯彰顯出不同文體之功能，教師所執行之任務決定了哪些文體會被使用或排除在外。