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| Subject: Fernanda's half-task of Unit 2 | |
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Author: Fernanda Pires |
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Date Posted: 21:04:23 08/19/10 Thu 4- How important is the description of procedures and methods adopted in the study being reported. The description of procedures and methods adopted in the study “Reading strategy awareness of Arabic-speaking medical students studying English.” is vital to understand this study and its result that is based on the method adopted. Understanding better this study: This study examined the extent of awareness about reading strategies among Arabic L1 medical students studying through the medium of English in a medical college in the Arabian Gulf. The focus of this study remains on comparing reading practices of less versus more proficient readers. A variety of tools (e.g. interviews, journals etc) were employed to capture the nature of strategic reading because it seems that more skilled L2 readers seem to use strategies more frequently, in a more varied and orchestrated manner than less skilled readers. Results were then correlated with various measures of reading proficiency (e.g. test scores etc). Description of the methodolody: The instrument used in this study was the SORS (Survey of Reading Strategies), a questionnaire adapted for use with L2 ESL readers from an instrument designed for measuring L1 English readers’ awareness of their academic reading strategies (the Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory or MARSI) 1) Study participants 108 Arabic-speaking medical students in Year One of their study and 52 in Year Four were the number of students that participated in this study. There were twice more female than male students. 2) SORS The SORS consisted of 30 statements with a five part Likert scale regarding perceived frequency of use. The 30-item questionnaire consisted of strategies assigned to three groups: - ‘‘Cognitive” strategies that can be described as ‘actions or procedures readers use when working directly with the text’ such as re-reading or adjusting speed; - ‘‘Metacognitive” strategies are ‘carefully planned techniques to monitor reading’ such as previewing and asking yourself questions; - ‘‘Support’’ strategies include ‘mechanisms to help readers understand text’ such as highlighting, translating and dictionary use. There were 8 Cognitive statements, 13 Metacognitive and 9 Support ones. The SORS was chosen for its ease of administration, for the fact that it had been used in several previous studies, in comparing both ESL and L1 English students in academic settings, and because the MARSI, from which it was adapted, had previously been used with Arabic-speaking students in an EFL setting. 3) Procedure A native Arabic-speaking English instructor prepared an Arabic version of the SORS and the Year One students were given the questionnaire in their regular English classes by their class instructor and were asked to respond using either the English or Arabic version. Students were advised to consider the strategies they used when reading academic material. Instructors were available to answer questions or provide clarification during the questionnaire administration. Questionnaires for Year Four students were given out by the researcher at the end of a required lecture, with the permission of the lecturer. Students were given a brief explanation of the purpose of the questionnaire and advised to think about strategies they used when reading medical texts. The researcher was available to answer questions or provide clarification during this administration. The questionnaire results were tabulated for individual strategy use, average strategy use in each group (metacognitive, cognitive and support) and overall strategy use for all students in each year, and also for groups with low and high initial English proficiency (as measured by initial TOEFL scores) for each year. ******* não sei se devo deixar essa parte pois não dá pra entender bem ******* (((The means for individual strategies, strategy groups, and overall strategy use were analyzed using ANOVA, with significance set at p = .01 (to help control for the expected increase in Type I errors associated with the use of multiple F-tests). Rank ordering of strategies for different student groups (categorized according to year, proficiency level and gender) were analyzed using Spearman rank order correlations.))) Results: The SORS aimed to answer two research questions: 1) Are there differences in the reported use of academic reading strategies among Arabic-speaking medical students studying through the medium of English at different years of instruction? Although Year Four students used more Metacognitive strategies than Year One students and also, Year One students used much more Support strategies related to translation than Year Four students, both years reported high use of all reading strategies and their rankings were highly correlated. 2) Do students of low initial English language proficiency report using different reading strategies than students with high initial proficiency in English? Apart from test scores, there were a few significant differences in the reported reading strategy use of low and high proficiency students. No significant differences were found between male and female students in this study. [ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ] |
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