MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HO CHI MINH CITY OPEN UNIVERSITY ---------------- THE EFFECTS OF SELF-REGULATED READING STRATEGY INSTRUCTION ON EFL STUDENTS’ READING COMPREHENSION AND READING MOTIVATION A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate School of HCMC Open University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts (TESOL) Submitted by DANG THI THU SUONG Supervisor Assoc. PHAM VU PHI HO Ho Chi Minh City - 2016 Tai Lieu Chat Luong STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I hereby certify my authorship of the thesis submitted today entitled, “The Effects of Self-regulated Reading Strategy Instruction on EFL Students’ Reading Comprehension and Reading Motivation” as the statement of requirements for theses in Masters’ Programs, issued by the Higher Degree Committee. Except where reference is made in the text of the thesis, this thesis does not contain material published elsewhere, or extracted in whole or in part from a thesis by which I have qualified for or been awarded another degree or diploma. No other person’s work has been used without due acknowledgement in the main text of the thesis.
This thesis has not been submitted for any degree in any other tertiary institution. Ho Chi Minh City, September 2016 DANG THI THU SUONG i RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS I hereby state that I, Dang Thi Thu Suong, being the candidate for the degree of Master of TESOL, accept the requirements of the university relating to the retention and use of Master’s Thesis deposited in the library. In terms of these conditions, I agree that the original of my thesis deposited in the library should be accessible for purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the library for the care, loan or reproduction of thesis. Ho Chi Minh City, September 2016 DANG THI THU SUONG ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to take this opportunity to express my heartfelt gratitude to several individuals who make a valuable contribution to the completion of this dissertation.
Without their great assistance and support, this thesis would not have come into existence. First of all, I owe my deepest gratitude to my supervisor – Dr. Pham Vu Phi Ho for his precious time and enthusiastic and specific guidance on conducting and writing this dissertation. Due to his patience and constant encouragement, I have maintained and nourished my motivation during the long process to make this thesis possible.
I would like to offer my sincere thanks to all of my lecturers who provided me with invaluable lessons and extensive knowledge that laid the foundation for this work. Special thanks are also sent to the academic staff of the Graduate School, HCMC Open University for their unconditional support and timely reminders. I am deeply indebted to my colleagues and students from HCMC University of Science, who willingly helped me with the data collection. Additionally, my thankfulness goes to Dr.
Nguyen Thai An – the Head of the Department of English Language, who gave me a chance to do my experiment with the students of the university. Also, I never forget each of the students who participated in the study. Without their enthusiasm and efforts, this thesis would have never been completed. I am also grateful to Mr.
Vu Huu Thanh – the lecturer of the Department of Finance-Banking, HCMC Open University, who provided TESOL 7 members with practical lessons about quantitative analysis and readily helped us whenever we had questions related to this issue. I felt more confident when collecting and analyzing data with statistic knowledge and skills that I learned from him. Last but not least, my appreciation goes to my family. Especially, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to my parents and family members for their tacit encouragement during the process of studying and writing this thesis.
I also want to send many thanks to my aunt for her financial support during my studying process. iii ABSTRACT The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of self-regulated reading strategy instruction on EFL students’ reading comprehension and motivation for reading. Additionally, the study also investigated the students’ reflections on their use of self- regulated reading strategies to draw the conclusion of whether the adapted SRRP program supported to create engaged self-regulated readers. The present study conducted a quasi-experiment following a pretest-post-test non- equivalent group design.
Accordingly, two of the 45 classes were assigned to the researcher to serve as the experimental group (N = 43) and the control group (N = 49). Three measurement instruments were employed consisting of the reading comprehension pre- and post-tests, the questionnaires about students’ motivation for reading and the students’ self-evaluation on the reading process. The quantitative data obtained from these three sources over the period of 12-week intervention wereanalyzed using the independent- and paired-samples t-tests. The researcher also analyzed the students’ responses to the open questions in their self-evaluation reports to gather qualitative data to answer the last research question.
The results of the study revealed that the instruction of self-regulated reading strategies resulted in more significant improvements in students’ reading comprehension than the traditional approach, only the experimental treatment substantially benefited EFL students to enhance their motivation for reading English as a foreign language, and the students reflected a remarkable increase in their use of the acquired strategies. This improvement started immediately after the four-week training of fragmentary self- regulated reading strategies and remained continuous after the six-week practicing in the whole process of self-regulated reading. In addition, through the students’ self-evaluation reports, there were 15 types of self-regulated reading strategies commonly used by most of the students in the experimental group during the intervention. In summary, the findings of the present study showed that it was possible to enhance EFL students’ reading comprehension as well as their motivation for reading and to maintain a rather high level of strategy use by the implementation of the training program enriched with self-regulated reading strategies.
Accordingly, it was reasonable to conclude that the adapted SRRP program supported to create engaged self-regulated readers in EFL contexts. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP. i RETENTION AND USE OF THE THESIS. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS.
v LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES. ix LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. xi CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION .1 Background to the Study .2 Statement of the Problem .3 Purposes of the Study.5 Significance of the Study .6 Definitions of Terms .7 Overview of Thesis Chapters. 8 CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW .1 Theoretical Background to the Study .1 Self-regulated Learning .1 Cognitive Theories of Self-regulated Learning.
9 Social Cognitive Theory. 9 Information Processing Theory. 11 Social Constructivist Theory .2 Motivation and Self-Regulated Learning .3 Characteristics of Self-Regulated Learners .4 The Teaching of Self-Regulated Learning.2 Reading Comprehension in EFL Contexts .1 Factors Contributing to Reading Comprehension in EFL Contexts.2 Reading Comprehension and Levels of Comprehension.3 Development of Reading Comprehension Instruction in EFL Contexts .4 Trends of Research in Reading Comprehension Strategy Instruction.3 Self-Regulated Learning in Reading Instruction .1 Benefits of Incorporating SRL into Reading Instruction .2 Challenges and Considerations when Incorporating SRL into Reading Instruction.2 Review of Related Literature .1 Intervention Studies on Strategy Instruction towards Self-regulated Reading.2 A Discussion for Implications for the Present Study .3 The Framework of the Present Study .4 Defining Research Problems for the Current Study .5 Procedure of the Study .1 Preparation for the Training.1 Reading Materials for both the Experimental and Control Group .2 Description of the Training Program for the Experimental Group .3 Description of the Training Program for the Control Group .2 The Training Procedure .1 The Training Procedures for the Experimental Group .2 The Training Procedures for the Control Group .1 Reading Comprehension Pre- and Post-Tests.1 The Construct of the Reading Comprehension Pre- and Post-Tests .2 Validity of the Pre- and Post-Tests.3 Reliability of the Pre- and Post-Tests .2 Questionnaire about Students’ Motivation for Reading .1 The Construct of the Questionnaire .2 Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) for the Pilot Questionnaire .3 Students’ Self-evaluation on the Reading Process.1 Description of the Self-evaluation Form .2 Reliability of the Students’ Self-evaluation Scales .7 Procedures of Data Collection .1 Research Question 1: Does the instruction of self-regulated reading strategies help EFL students improve their reading comprehension? .2 Research Question 2: To what extent does the instruction of self-regulated reading strategy help to enhance EFL students’ reading motivation? .3 Research Question 3: What are EFL students’ reflections on their use of self- regulated reading strategies during the intervention? .1 Do EFL students reflect an enhancement in their use of self-regulated reading strategies during the intervention ? .2 What self-regulated reading strategies were used by most of the EFL students over the intervening process?. 69 CHAPTER 4 FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION .1 Research Question 1: Does the self-regulated reading strategy instruction helps EFL students improve their reading comprehension? .1 Comparing the two groups’ reading comprehension before the treatment .2 Comparing each group’s reading comprehension before and after the treatment .3 Comparing the two groups’ reading comprehension after the treatment .2 Research Question 2: To what extent does the self-regulated reading strategy instruction help to enhance EFL Students’ reading motivation? .4 Comparing the two groups’ reading motivation before the treatment .4 Comparing each group’s reading motivation before and after the treatment .3 Comparing the two groups’ reading motivation after the treatment .4 Results of the Paired-samples T-tests on Each Reading-motivation-related Scale of the EG .3 Research Question 3: What are EFL students’ reflections on their use of self- regulated reading strategies during the intervention? .1: Do EFL students reflect an enhancement in their use of self-regulated reading during the intervention? .2: What self-regulated reading strategies were used by most of the students during the intervention? .4 Summary of the Findings .5 Discussion of the Findings .1 A Discussion on the Students’ Reading Comprehension .2 A Discussion on the Students’ Motivation for Reading .3 A Discussion on the Students’ Reflections on their Use of Self-regulated Reading Strategies.
98 CHAPTER 5 CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATION .2 Limitations of the Study .3 Suggestions for Further Research .4 Implications for Further Practice. 104 Appendix 1 – Preliminary Questionnaire. 112 Appendix 2 – Scales and Adapted Items of the Motivation for Reading Questionnaire. 114 Appendix 3 – Questionnaire about Students’ Motivation for Reading.
116 Appendix 4 – Students’ Self-evaluation on the Reading Process. 119 Appendix 5 – Pre-test on Reading Comprehension. 121 Appendix 6 – Post-test on Reading Comprehension. 128 Appendix 7 – Self-regulated Reading Tasks for the In-class Reading Practices.
135 Appendix 8 – Reading Assignments for the Experimental Group. 139 Appendix 9 – A Typical Reading Assignment for the Control Group. 140 Appendix 10 – Results of the Pilot Tests on Reading Comprehension. 142 Appendix 11 – Reliability of the Pilot Tests on Reading Comprehension.
143 Appendix 12 – Results of EFA Analysis for the Motivation for Reading Questionnaire. 144 Appendix 13 – Reliability of the final Motivation for Reading Questionnaire. 146 Appendix 14 – Reliability of the Self-evaluation Scales. 147 Appendix 15 – Results of the Pre- and Post-tests on Reading Comprehension.
148 Appendix 16 – The Mean Scores Obtained on the Pre- and Post-questionnaires and their Related Scales. 149 Appendix 17 – The Mean Scores Obtained on the Self-evaluation Scales. 154 viii LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES Table 3.1: Summary of participants’ information .2: Students’ method of learning reading comprehension in previous semesters .3: Procedure of the study .4: Topics of the reading practices used for in-class reading lessons .5: Description of the training program for the experimental group .6: Description of the training program for the control group .7: Main training phases and procedures for the experimental group .8: Main training stages and procedures for the control group .9: Summary of item types and the tasks required.10: Summary of test items in each question type of the pre- and post-tests .11: Summary of the questionnaire about students’ motivation for reading .1: Group statistics on the pretests .