CC BY-NC-ND
0Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
ScienceDirect
Procedía - Social and Behavioral Sciences 90 (2013) 634 - 640
6th International Conference on University Learning and Teaching (InCULT 2012)
On the relationship of reading strategies, extensive reading and
self-efficacy
Reza Raissia* , Mostafa Roustaeib
a Language Academy, Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, 81310 Skudai, Johor, Malaysia.
Abstract
Present study, in a longitudinal and quasi-experimental method, investigates the contribution of reading strategies and extensive reading to the learners' reading self-efficacy. It examines participants' perceptions about the usefulness of extensive reading and reading strategies, and also, the way how their perception influences on reading self-efficacy. 60 undergraduate students in Islamic Azad University of Iran have been chosen as participants of the current study. They have been divided into control and experimental groups. Participants of both groups received extensive reading instruction, but just participants in the treatment group have been introduced to the different common reading strategies. Two different instruments have been used to collect data: (A) reading comprehension test, and (B) reading self-efficacy questionnaire. Collecting data was performed at the beginning and end of one academic semester. Results of the study showed significant effect of the reading strategy instructions on the performance of reading comprehension of the treatment group. Hopefully results of the current study help EFL teachers to choose an appropriate teaching methodology, which can help learners to enhance their self-efficacy in reading and, in general, to improve their cognitive abilities in reading comprehension.
© 2013TheAuthors. Publishedby Elsevier Ltd.
Selectionand/orpeer-reviewunder responsibilityoftheFaculty ofEducation,University TechnologyMARA,Malaysia. Keywords: Reading comprehehension; Intensive reading; Reading self-efficacy
1. Introduction
Having taught English language for a long time in the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) context of Iran, researchers witnessed that the problems of English learners are due to not being exposed directly to the English language; a problem which can lead to serious problems in language learning. This condition has resulted in reading authentic English texts (e.g. novels, newspapers, on-line English texts, etc.) as an open window to access
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +60108206100 E-mail address: raissi_reza@yahoo.com
1877-0428 © 2013 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.
Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of the Faculty of Education, University Technology MARA, Malaysia. doi:10.1016/j.sbspro.2013.07.135
the original English language. Therefore, language learners have to increase the English language input through extensive reading.
Reviewing the literature clarifies the role of motivation in reading in both EFL and English as a Second Language (ESL) contexts and the influence of self-efficacy on development of reading skills in language learners. It is proved that reading motivation and reading self-efficacy have a strong relationship with each other (Tremblay & Gardner, 1995). The informal observations of the researchers of the current study in their classes as EFL teachers on reading activities of students and their different degrees of motivation in reading activities caused them to think about self-efficacy and its influence on the students' motivation in reading comprehension. Bandura (1977) considered self-efficacy as a theory unifying behavioral changes that learners maintain in their mind about their own capacity in performing the tasks well and behaving appropriately. The self-efficacy level has been considered as a factor that has effects on certain behaviors.
A noticeable point about self-beliefs is the fact that students can learn when they want to learn and they believe that they are able to learn. It means that it is vitally important for students to be confident in their ability to perform language tasks and develop their language.
2. Scope of the study
Present study aims to examine a longitudinal effect of self-efficacy in EFL reading resulted from explicit instruction of reading strategies in the treatment group during a reading comprehension course, while participants of the control group just received reading comprehension course without any explicit instruction of reading strategies. This study has been conducted on 60 participants studying at Islamic Azad University of Iran in order to examine whether, in an EFL context, self-efficacy can be cultivated.
Participants in the treatment group received the information about different reading strategies and cognitive ability strategies in reading. The control group received the same instructions of reading comprehension but they did not receive of reading strategy instructions. Participants of the treatment group were informed about different reading strategies and their usefulness and effects on reading comprehension.
Reviewing the literature, the researchers became to the conclusion that not many studies have been conducted on the relationship between self-efficacy and the learners' reading performance in the EFL contexts. Present study aims to examine the relationship between introducing different reading strategies and improving reading comprehension among Iranian EFL learners. In a similar study, Carrell (1985) instructed 25 students of high intermediate level in an ESL setting by introducing different reading strategies explicitly. He introduced the organizational features of the typical expository texts to students so that they could improve their reading comprehension, and additionally, they were given information about the strategies they can use to recall easily what they have read. The results of his study demonstrated the effectiveness of instructing the organization of the expository texts on enhancing the ability of students in recalling the contents of the reading texts.
3. Review of the related literature
Carrell et al. (1989) used Experience Text Relationship (ETR) and semantic mapping to present a strategy-based instruction for 26 learners of an intensive EFL program held in USA. Findings of their study showed clearly that instructing the meta-cognitive features and enhancing students' awareness of strategies facilitated their reading comprehension.
Kusiak (2001) conducted a study on some randomly-chosen Polish students of secondary level to examine the effects of instructing the strategies to learners; strategies such as: specifying the topic sentence, exploring the paragraphs' main idea, guessing the meaning from context of the sentences or paragraphs, and finding key words. The study was held in eight sessions, and the results showed a noticeable improvement in the learners' reading comprehension and their awareness while using strategies.
Robb and Susser (1989) conducted a study on 125 Japanese college freshmen at a university in Kyoto in order to investigate the effectiveness of explicit strategy instruction on the language learners. Strategy
instructions were received by two groups: (A) skills-based intervention group and (B) extensive reading one. The results showed that the members of the extensive reading group were noticeably more successful in using strategies effectively.
4. Methodology
4.1. Research questions
In order to fulfill the purposes of this study, the following research questions were developed:
1. Were the level of the participant's English proficiency improved after receiving the treatment?
2. Do changes in reading self-efficacy lead to changes in reading comprehension?
3. Does extensive reading lead to a better self-efficacy?
4.2. Method
In this study, researchers used a quantitative approach to answer the above research questions. This was a quasi-experimental study in which control and treatment groups were not randomized. Data were obtained from two major sources: a reading comprehension test and a reading self-efficacy survey. Both of the tests have been offered during the course of the study to the students who were studying general English course in Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran, in one academic semester. Participants of the study were 60 undergraduate students who were divided into two major groups, namely, control group and experimental group. 30 students in the experimental group received the treatment of explicit instruction of reading strategies and extensive reading instruction while the other 30 students in the control group received just extensive reading instruction without explicit instruction of reading strategies. The whole data collection procedure took place within one academic semester during 14 weeks.
4.3. Data analysis
The collected data have been analyzed descriptively by the SPSS software version 20. In this study, researchers used paired sample t-test to compare the results of the reading comprehension test at the beginning and end of the semester in each group in order to see whether extensive reading strategies were useful or not. The participants in the experimental group received reading self-efficacy and reading comprehension tests at the beginning and end of the semester to see whether treatment affected their knowledge about reading strategies and increased the level of their reading self-efficacy or not. Results of the study are shown in the following sections.
5. Results
In order to analyze reading proficiency of the students at the beginning and end of the semester, a reading comprehension test has been given to the students in both beginning and end of the academic semester. Descriptive statistics as well as compared t-test for each group ran in order to make the reading proficiency of the students clear, and to compare their performance at the beginning and end of the academic semester.
5.1. Descriptive statistics and paired sample t-test of the experimental group
In the Table 1, descriptive statistics of the reading comprehension test related to the experimental group has been analyzed by descriptive stastistics; scores of the reading test was out of 20.
Table 1. Descriptive Statistics of the pre-test and post-test of the experimental group
N Range Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation
pre-test 30 15.00 5.00 20.00 12.3667 3.05674
post-test 30 19.00 1.00 20.00 14.4000 4.16554
Valid N (list wise) 30
As it seems clear from the above table, mean of the scores has been increased during the treatment; while mean of the pre-test was 12.36, mean of the post-test increased to14.4. By comparing the mean of the scores, we can conclude that reading comprehension of the students has been improved during the treatment. In Table 2, compared t-test of the experimental group scores which was ran has been shown to see whether treatment was effective in the student's performance or not.
As it is clear from Table 2, the significance of the results between pre-test and post-test is 0.044 which is lower than 0.05, and it shows that the treatment was effective and students' scores has been increased between the pre-test and post-test period.
Table 2. Paired sample t-test of reading comprehension test related to the experimental group
Paired Differences t df Sig. (2-tailed)
Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error 95% Confidence Interval of the Difference
Mean Lower Upper
Pair 1 pre-test -post-test 2.03333 5.28813 .96548 -4.00796 -.05871 -2.106 29 .044
5.2 Descriptive statistics and paired sample t-test of the control group
In Table 3, descriptive statistics of the reading comprehension test related to the control group has been analyzed by descriptive statstics; scores of the reading test was out of 20.
Table 3. Descriptive statistics of the pre-test and post-test of the control group
N_Minimum_Maximum_Mean_Std. Deviation_
30 5.00 18.00 12.6333 2.82212
30 5.00 15.00 12.9667 2.05918
pre-test post-test
Valid N (list wise)
As it seems clear from table 3, the mean of the reading comprehension test has not changed significantly between the pre-test and post-test period. It shows that extensive reading treatment has not affected the performance of the participants significantly.
Table 4 shows compared t-test of the control group scores which was ran to see whether treatment was effective in the student's performance or not. As it seems clear from the above table, the significance between pre-test and post-test is 0.58 which is bigger than 0.05 so there is not a significant difference between the results of the pre-test and post-test of the control group. It shows that extensive reading instruction has not affected the participants' performance significantly.
Table 4. Paired sample t-test of reading comprehension test related to the control group
Paired Differences t df Sig. (2-tailed)
Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean 95% Confidence Interval of the Difference
Lower Upper
Pair 1 pre-test -post-test -.33333 3.26247 .59564 -1.55156 .88489 -.560 29 .580
5.3. The results of reading self-efficacy questionnaire
Self-efficacy questionnaires were distributed among the students of the experimental group as they had received reading strategies instruction at the beginning and end of the academic semester. It was carried out to see whether the participants' beliefs have been changed by introducing reading strategies or not, and to investigate whether they achieved a good reading self-efficacy after receiving reading strategies instruction .
Reading self-efficacy questionnaire was in a likert scale type, in which participants were asked to answer to the questions based on their self-efficacy in English reading. Questionnaire was ranked from 1 to 6, in which one means strongly disagree, two means disagree, three means slightly disagree, four means slightly agree, five means agree and six means strongly agree.
Table 5. Descriptive statistics of the self-efficacy questionnaire (Experimental group)
N Minimum Maximum Mean Std. Deviation
pre-test 30 1.00 6.00 2.6000 1.35443
post-test 30 1.00 6.00 3.8333 1.41624
Valid N (list wise) 30
As it seems clear from Table 5, the mean of the scores from the beginning to the end of the semester have been increased considerably; the mean of the pre-test increased from 2.6 to 3.83. It shows that reading self-efficacy of the students have been increased from the beginning of the instruction course to the end.
Table 6 presents the paired sample t-test in order to compare student's level of reading self- efficacy before and after the treatment of reading strategies instruction.
Table 6. Paired sample t-test of reading self-efficacy questionnaire of the experimental group
Paired Differences t df Sig. (2-tailed)
Mean Std. Deviation Std. Error Mean 95% Confidence Interval of the Difference
Lower Upper
Pair 1 pre-test -post-test -1.66667 2.52345 .46072 -2.60894 -.72439 -3.618 29 .001
As it seems clear from the above table, the significance between the pre-test and post-test of the self-efficacy scores of the students in the experimental group is 0.001 which is lower than 0.05. It shows that the participants' self-efficacy in reading comprehension have been increased significantly.
6. Discussion and conclusion
During the 14 weeks period of the current study, researchers attempted to find out whether introducing different reading strategies can help readers to gain more self-efficacy. To this end, students were divided into two different groups, namely, experimental and control groups. Students in the experimental group were made familiar with different reading strategies, while students in the control group were not. As it has been discussed before, by introducing different reading strategies to the EFL learners, their reading comprehension ability has been improved significantly. It seems very crucial to teach different reading strategies in different EFL settings especially in Iran. As teacher makes his/her students' familiar with different reading strategies like skimming, scanning, and think aloud protocols, their cognitive abilities increases significantly and they can process different texts in their minds more easily. At the end of the current study, researchers want to advise English teachers especially those who teach English in EFL contexts to investigate different reading strategies and introduce those strategies to their learners in order to make them more proficient in reading. It is recommended to use internet and other valid sources to extract different reading strategies which seem matched for the level of their students and introduce those strategies to them in order to improve their reading ability. It goes without saying that having a good command of reading is a prerequisite of writing and if students can not read well, they can not write well, too. Nowadays, most of the students need English reading for a variety of purposes like studying, travelling and even fun. In the global village, it seems survival for learners to be proficient in reading to surf on the net, read different news, or get some useful supplementary materials related to their pedagogical purposes. By considering the importance of reading in mind, it is advisable for the teachers to know more about reading strategies and teach those strategies explicitly in the classroom.
6.1. Pedagogical implications
Hopefully, results of the current study are useful for a number of people; first, curricular developers all around the world can revise their educational curriculum in a way that teachers could introduce different reading strategies in their classes. Second English teachers can benefit from the results of the current study to introduce different reading strategies in their classes. And finally, students should be instructed about different reading strategies in order to increase their reading self-efficacy.
Acknowledgments
Researchers want to express their deepest gratitude to the Iranian EFL learners as the participants of the current study who have cooperated with the researchers during the research process, and Mr. Hassan Nematzadeh Balagatabi and Dr. Amin Babazadeh Sangar who helped the researchers during the preparation of the current paper.
References
Bandura, A. (1977). Self-efficacy: Toward a unifying theory of behavioral change. Psychological Review, 84, 191-215. Carrell, P. L. (1985). Facilitating ESL reading by teaching text structure. TESOL Quarterly 19, 727-52.
Carrell, P. L., Pharis, B., & Liberto, J. (1989). Metacognitive strategy training for ESL reading. TESOL Quarterly, 23, 647-678.
Kusiak, M. (2001). The effect of metacognitive strategy training on reading comprehension and metacognitive knowledge. EUROSLA
Yearbook 1, 255-274.
Robb, T. N., &Susser, B. (1989). Extensive reading vs skills building in an EFL context. Reading in a Foreign Language, 5, 239-251. (EJ397863).
Tremblay, P. F., & Gardner, R. C. (1995). Expanding the motivation construct in language learning. Modern Language Journal, 79, 505-518.
