An investigation into reading comprehension strategies reported by English major freshmen at Nong Lam University

MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING

HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY

AN INVESTIGATION

INTO READING COMPREHENSION STRATEGIES

REPORTED BY ENGLISH MAJOR FRESHMEN

AT NONG LAM UNIVERSITY

A THESIS SUBMITTED IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT

OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF

MASTER OF ARTS (TESOL)

By

NGUYEN MINH TRANG

Supervised by

Dr. BUI THI THUC QUYEN

HO CHI MINH CITY, 2017

i

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP

I declare this thesis entitled “AN INVESTIGATION INTO READING

COMPREHENSION STRATEGIES REPORTED BY ENGLISH MAJOR

FRESHMEN AT NONG LAM UNIVERSITY” is the result of my own work

except as cited in the reference.

The thesis has not been accepted for any degree and it is not currently submitted in

candidature of any other degree.

Ho Chi Minh City, 2017

Nguyen Minh Trang

ii

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

First and foremost, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my

supervisor, Dr. Bui Thi Thuc Quyen. I am very grateful for her help, suggestions,

advice, and sympathies. Without her patience and valuable help, I could have not

finished this thesis on schedule.

I gratefully acknowledge to all teachers and students from Faculty of Foreign

Language and Pedagogy at Nong Lam University who facilitated my data

collection, so I could successfully collect the data.

Finally, I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to my parents for their

great support and help. Without their encouragement and devotion, I would have

not been able to complete the thesis.

iii

ABSTRACT

The purpose of this study was to investigate university students’ perceived use

of strategies to read academic materials in English as Foreign Language (EFL)

context across different levels of proficiency. Besides, it was designed to analyze

whether the use of reading strategies among EFL first-year student differed

according to their gender and different lengths of English learning. In order to fulfill

the research aims, both quantitative method and qualitative method were

implemented for data collection. Quantitative data were collected from the results of

a reading comprehension test and the questionnaire administered to 120 freshmen

majoring in English at Nong Lam University. Semi-structured interviews were

conducted with 12 students selected from the participants to collect qualitative data.

While the data from the reading test and the questionnaire were gathered and

analyzed by SPSS statistical package version 22, the semi-structured interview data

were recorded, transcribed and then analyzed by the method of content analysis.

The results indicated that the participants reported to employ strategies on

reading at medium level of frequency and there was not any significant correlation

between students’ awareness of strategies and their reading scores. However, some

differences in utilizing reading strategies between successful and unsuccessful

readers were revealed in this study. Furthermore, this study indicated that the

students’ reading strategy use was not significantly affected by their gender or

length of learning English. These findings have offered detailed insight into issues

related to freshmen’s reading comprehension and reading strategy use at Nong Lam

University. They are hoped to be helpful for teachers and learners of EFL at this

university and other similar contexts. Finally, based on the limitations of this study,

directions are provided for future research.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP ......................................................................... i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT....................................................................................... ii

ABSTRACT............................................................................................................. iii

TABLE OF CONTENTS........................................................................................ iv

LIST OF TABLES ................................................................................................. vii

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS............................................................................... viii

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION............................................................................1

1.1 Problem statement.................................................................................................1

1.2 Research aims........................................................................................................2

1.3 Research questions................................................................................................2

1.4 Research significance............................................................................................3

1.5 Working definition of key terms...........................................................................3

1.6 Thesis structure .....................................................................................................4

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW................................................................6

2.1 Reading comprehension in EFL context...............................................................6

2.2 EFL reading strategies...........................................................................................8

2.3 Classification of reading strategies in EFL context ............................................10

2.4 Reading strategies for better reading comprehension performance....................13

2.5 Successful and less successful EFL readers........................................................15

2.6 Previous related studies.......................................................................................17

2.6.1 Studies on students’ frequency use of reading strategies in EFL context.17

2.6.2 Studies on reading strategy use between successful and unsuccessful

readers.................................................................................................................19

2.6.3 Studies on reading strategy use between male and female students.........22

2.6.4 Studies on the relationship between reading strategy use and length of

English learning..................................................................................................23

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2.7 Chapter summary ................................................................................................24

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY.........................................................................25

3.1 Research design...................................................................................................25

3.2 Research questions..............................................................................................25

3.3 Research context .................................................................................................26

3.4 Participants..........................................................................................................26

3.5 The reading course ..............................................................................................27

3.6 Instruments..........................................................................................................27

3.6.1 The reading test .........................................................................................28

3.6.2 The Questionnaire .....................................................................................29

3.6.3 Pilot of the study........................................................................................31

3.6.4 Reliability and validity of the questionnaire .............................................32

3.6.5 The semi-structured interviews.................................................................32

3.7 Data collection procedures..................................................................................34

3.8 Data analysis .......................................................................................................35

3.8.1 Questionnaire data.....................................................................................36

3.8.2 Interview data ............................................................................................37

3.9 Chapter summary ................................................................................................37

CHAPTER 4: RESULTS AND DISCUSSION ....................................................38

4.1 Test of reliability.................................................................................................38

4.2 Results of students’ questionnaire.......................................................................39

4.2.1 Students’ frequency of use of reading strategies.......................................40

4.2.2 Relationship between reading strategy awareness and reading competence

............................................................................................................................45

4.2.3 Relationship between perceived use of reading strategies and gender .....49

4.2.4 Relationship between reading strategy awareness and length of learning

English................................................................................................................51

4.3 Findings of students’ interviews .........................................................................55

4.4 Discussion of findings.........................................................................................59

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4.5 Chapter summary ................................................................................................64

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS......................................65

5.1 Summary of major findings ................................................................................65

5.2 Implications.........................................................................................................67

5.3 Limitations and recommendations......................................................................68

5.4 Chapter summary ................................................................................................69

REFERENCES........................................................................................................70

APPENDIX A ..........................................................................................................79

APPENDIX B ..........................................................................................................91

APPENDIX C ..........................................................................................................95

APPENDIX D ..........................................................................................................99

APPENDIX E ........................................................................................................100

APPENDIX F.........................................................................................................101

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LIST OF TABLES

Table 4.1 Cronbach’s Alpha of the questionnaire ...........................................39

Table 4.2 Five-point Likert scale .....................................................................39

Table 4.3 Three levels of strategy usage..........................................................40

Table 4.4 Means of Reported Strategy Used ...................................................40

Table 4.5 Descriptive Statistics of EFL students’ perceived use of reading strategies

..........................................................................................................................41

Table 4.6 Preferences of Reading Strategy by the participants .......................42

Table 4.7 Descriptive statistics of the reading comprehension test score........45

Table 4.8 Descriptive statistics for reading strategies of three groups ...........46

Table 4.9 One-way ANOVA of overall reading strategy use among three groups

..........................................................................................................................46

Table 4.10 Strategies used by successful and unsuccessful readers................47

Table 4.11 Descriptive statistics for reading strategy use according to gender

..........................................................................................................................50

Table 4.12 Independent sample t-test for reading strategy used by gender.....50

Table 4.13 Descriptive Statistic of participants’ length of learning English ...51

Table 4.14 Correlation between reading strategy awareness and length of English

learning.............................................................................................................52

Table 4.15 Profile of the participants...............................................................55

Table 4.16 Strategies used to tackling reading problems.................................57

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LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

ANOVA Analysis of Variances

d Effect size of independent t-test

EFL English as a Foreign Language

M Mean value

N Number of participants

p p-value

r Pearson correlation

SPSS Statistical Package for Social Sciences

Sig. Significance

Std. Standard

1

CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

This chapter is designed to offer an introduction including the statement of

problems, research aims, research significance, and working definition of key terms

of this study. Finally, the structure of the thesis is provided in this chapter.

1.1 Problem statement

Reading is considered to be the primary skill in learning English as Foreign

Language (EFL), and it can be explained as a process in which learners use their

experience, knowledge and attitude to comprehend the text (Adiguzel & Gurses,

2013). It is widely known that reading can improve other skills such as writing or

speaking, and it also enhances the process to acquire information from several

sources (Yilmaz, 2012). Lee (2012) considers English reading as “a fundamental

form of language inputs, and a psycholinguistic process for active reconstruction of

a message from written language” (p. 310). Although most of EFL learners do not

have to speak English in their daily lives, they need to read a great deal of materials

written in English so as to obtain “the wealth of information” (Eskey, 2005, cited in

Zhou, 2011, p.46). In Vietnam, especially in universities, every English major

student has to take at least a course on reading comprehension as one of the

compulsory subjects. Moreover, reading comprehension is an essential part in

almost every EFL exam such as National High School Examination, IELTS

(International English Language Testing System), TOEFL (Test of English as a

Foreign Language), and so forth.

On the other hand, comprehending a reading text is not an easy task,

especially in foreign language. Many researchers assert that learners of EFL are “ill￾equipped to handle the academic reading demands” (Maasum & Maarof, 2012, p.

1250). Pang (2008) points out that EFL learners’ proficiency in reading is

influenced by many factors, such as word recognition, familiarity with the reading

topics or structure, and so forth. Additionally, many research studies conducted

2

have proved that learners who are successful in reading comprehension are the ones

who “are active and use a variety of strategies as they read (Keene & Zimmermann,

1997, cited in Scharlach, 2008). Cantrell and Carter (2009; cited in Raftari, Seyyedi

& Ismail, 2012) also agree that successful reading associates most with

“understanding about the kinds of reading strategies”. Hence, reading strategies and

use of these strategies also play a very important role in processing the reading text

(Pang, 2008). However, “there could be some differences in frequency and choices

of the strategies among countries” (Kasimi, 2012, p. 170), and the strategies that are

frequently employed and the differences in the way successful readers and less

successful readers apply have not been extensively researched in the context of

Vietnam. In addition, at Nong Lam University, although every first year student of

English Department reported that they had been taught the awareness of strategies

on reading comprehension in English, most of them admitted that they were not

able to monitor these strategies or employ the most suitable ones when encountering

difficulties in reading. From the two concerns above, the current study is conducted

to investigate the reading strategies employed among first year students at Nong

Lam University and how successful and less successful readers have applied such

strategies when perform the tasks of reading academic materials in English.

1.2 Research aims

This research aims to investigate English major first-year students’ reading

strategy use and the differences between successful and less successful readers’ use

of such strategies in EFL context. Besides, how students’ gender and lengths of

learning English affect their perceived use of strategies while reading academic

material is also taken into consideration.

1.3 Research questions

In order to achieve these aims mentioned above, the current study addresses

the following research questions: