DISCUSSION AND IMPLICATION
The chapter is made up of five sections. The first section presents the summary of the findings. Discussion of the results will be followed in the second part. The third part discusses pedagogical implications. The implications for future studies are presented in the fourth section. Finally, conclusion will be given in the last part.
Summary of the Findings
The purpose of the present study was to examine the efficacy of implementing QtA approach on comprehension, written response and students’ perceptions. The QtA lessons were implemented on a class of EFL eleventh graders for four weeks, and another class served as a control group. Students’ response in three types of reading comprehension questions, post-reading written response, and perception questionnaire were further analyzed to answer the research questions.
The answer to the first research question “Does QtA instruction make a difference in senior high school students’ reading comprehension as measured by three levels of short-answer questions, factual, interpretive and responsive?” is that QtA lessons make a difference in answering the third level of comprehension questions, responsive questions;
however, they did not facilitate the answers to the factual and interpretive questions, the first and second level of comprehension questions. Hence, QtA approach can facilitate the higher level of reading comprehension, represented by the response to responsive questions, which command a connection between reader and the text. However, for these senior high school students, such significant effect of QtA approach does not hold for the text-bound level of reading comprehension, factual and interpretive understanding.
The answer to the second research question “Does QtA instruction make a difference in
the content of senior high school students’ post-reading response writing as indicated by number of words, number of thought unit, number of words per thought unit, and the four types of response, textual, personal, intellectual, and incorrect?” can be answered via two perspectives. First, QtA approach made a difference in the number of words per thought unit, yet there was not any effect on the number of words and the number of thought units in writing. Students produced longer thought unit after treatment. Secondly, in terms of writing quality, QtA approach increases students’ production of intellectual response and decreases the number of textual response and incorrect response. Nevertheless, it did not show the effect on personal response. Thus, it could be concluded that after QtA training, Group E tended to make more effort in generalizing text ideas as shown in the rise of intellectual response and they could interpret the text with more precision with less incorrect response. However, QtA doesn’t seem to boost or reduce the connection to personal experience and QtA even inhibit their reproduction of text ideas.
The third research question “What are students’ perceptions toward QtA instruction and self-assessment of ability growth in English?” is answered at three levels. During the treatment, their favorite three features of QtA approach are interpreting text message, teacher-posed queries and whole class discussion. After the training, they felt that they have made progress in their reading comprehension, thinking ability, and general English ability.
For future implementation and feasibility of QtA lessons, students generally held positive attitude toward QtA approach and even wanted to take more QtA lessons in the future. Some of the students have started to try to utilize QtA technique in their own reading; while some students had difficulty internalizing the approach.
Discussion
The findings are examined in terms of comprehension questions, the quantity and quality or response writing, and students’ perceptions toward QtA approach.
QtA and Reading Comprehension
In this study, comprehension was measured in light of response to three levels of comprehension questions. There is a significant difference between groups in students’ scores of responsive questions. That Group E significantly outperformed Group C in their answer to this question type shows that QtA lessons have facilitative effect on readers’ highest level of thinking. In answering responsive questions, readers have to view the underlying meaning of the text as a whole, instead of specific text parts, which needs higher-order thinking to integrate and analyze the ideas (Applegate et al., 2002). It is conjectured that this finding results from the features of QtA approach. Since QtA approach focuses more on the connection of the text and reader knowledge or experience, readers are encouraged to actively make multiple interpretations of the text ideas and connect themselves, the text and the world.
Such multiple connections correspond to what is described in transactional model of reading (Rosenblatt, 1982). The dialogic classroom of QtA lessons contributes a lot to fostering readers’ higher thinking level. While exchanging alternate interpretations in discussion, readers have to elaborate and synthesize ideas to construct mental representation, which involves active cognitive engagement and evaluative thinking of the text (Almasi &
Garas-York, 2009).
For factual questions, there is also a significant difference; however, it is the control group that surpassed the experimental group. In other words, there is a detrimental effect of QtA on the answer to factual question. Unlike conventional teaching to control group, which involve activities that underscore elements of the text, e.g., translating, answering literal questions and summarizing, students taught by QtA did not concentrate on decoding the surface language and constructing the textbase. They might devote more attention to global meaning and thinking and less to specific text or language details. Just as stated in the review by Duke and Pearson (2002) on reading researches, if students are asked factual questions in class, they will focus more on the factual details of the passage. Learners’ behaviors are thus
shaped. Therefore, students in control group could exceed in answering factual questions than experimental group. On the other hand, experimental group with their attention devoted to higher-level construction of text meaning, they might spare less capacity for local level processing of text details than control group.
In a similar vein, in this study, no difference was found between control group and experimental group in answering interpretive questions. Upon examination of interpretive questions, it is found that despite the fact that interpretive questions in the current study require readers to answer by filling up textual gap with personal knowledge (Applegate et al., 2002), they still need readers to recall some details of the story and then draw conclusion. For example, while answering one of the interpretive question,” Why did the circus seal come back to visit his families and friends?” readers have to remember what the circus seal did upon arriving home as a clue to provide reasons. Participants in Group E might not be able to recall some specific details of the story and thus failed to improve answering interpretive question.
The findings of QtA impacts on comprehension in this study echoes those by Sandora et al. (1999), in which QtA approach, a during-reading discussion, was compared with Great Books approach, an after-reading discussion, in their effect on reading comprehension. In Sandora et al. ‘s study, QtA approach outperformed Great Books approach in terms of open-ended response questions. The questions by Sandora et al. (1999) covered three types:
finding authorial intent, offering alternative solution, and evaluating the plot or a character, which correspond to those asked in this study, tapping the level of understanding beyond text.
Both their study and present study compared QtA approach with non-dialogic approach and revealed the effect of QtA approach on the beyond text understanding. Non-dialogic approaches offer little interaction between the readers and the text (Sandora et al., 1999). On the other hand, QtA approach renders readers higher frequency of interaction with the text in distributed manner. Hence, interaction might be one attribution of QtA effect. Readers can
constantly construct their interpretation beyond the surface level of the text idea.
However, a slight difference in findings is found between current study and Liu and Chu’s (2008) QtA research on junior high school students. Their results showed a significant difference in interpretive question but not in response question while the current study displayed the impact on responsive questions but not on interpretive question. One possible explanation for the disparity in results is that the pre-posttest texts used by Liu (2008) are shorter and easier in terms of readability2. Hence, the longer and more difficult texts in the pre-posttest texts of current study may contain more complex ideas and thus elicit higher level thinking in responsive questions. Another reason might involve the age difference of participants between the two studies. The participants in Liu and Chu’s study were ninth graders (around age 15) while the participants in the present study were eleventh graders (around age 17). Older readers might have their high level thinking. such as abstract thinking, deductive reasoning, logical judgment, and critical thinking, better developed than younger readers. (Demetriou, Mouyi, & Spanoudis, 2010). Ninth graders in Liu and Chu’s (2008) study might allocate most of their mental capacity to interpretation of text and thus failed to elaborate their thinking beyond the text. On the other hand, the cognitively more mature participants in present study, after exposure to QtA approach, might be able to do more abstract thinking and likewise yielded better performance in extending the text idea. Text difference plus thinking sophistication possibly make the difference between the two studies.
QtA and Quantity of Response Writing
Besides comprehension questions, written response is another measure of reading outcome. The production facet of reading follows the completion of reading. Since post-reading response writing opens the window to free-thinking about the text, written responses were examined to see if there was any difference in participants’ writing quantity
2 Flesch‐Kincaid Grade Level is determined by word length and sentence length
and quality as the indication of thinking evolution.
For the quantity in writing in terms of number of words and number of thought units, Group E does not differ from Group C. It is probably because participants were given the same time limit and word limit in each written response. As a result, the length of the response writing did not make great change.
Nevertheless, QtA impacts on the generation of number of words per thought unit. That students generated more words per thought unit might indirectly point to the more sophistication in language use (Hunt, 1965; Larsen-Freeman, 1978). According to Brock’s (1986), if more referential questions than display questions were asked by teachers, students’
response tended to be more syntactically complex. For example, one student from QtA group generated shorter thought unit in the pretest，“I think the seal in the story has a little bit proud and stupid” than what he accounted in the posttest，“A lot of us have some dreams in our mind which cannot be realized because of the pressure of parents or real life just like the moth’s family don’t want him to chase the moon.” In general, students in QtA group generated slightly longer thought indicating both the effort of trying to make sense of the text and the resultant sophisticated syntax in their response writing. Queries of QtA are similar to referential questions in the way that the answers are open-ended and are not necessarily known by the questioner. The level of a question has the impact on what the students respond and on how students think (Brock, 1986). When students are asked less factual and display questions, their thinking would be led to higher level and be more elaborate, as indicated by the longer thought unit in this study.
QtA and Quality of Response Writing
In addition to the quantity of response writing, the effect of QtA training on the quality of response writing was the other essential concern. After QtA treatment, the amount of textual response in Group E decreased. It might be because Group E allocated more mental capacity in generating intellectual response when trying to make sense of the text and thus, the amount
of textual response was inhibited. In addition, the result that Group C produced more textual response than Group E in the posttest might be attributed to the fact that participants in Group C spent most of the time doing translation, summary and other text-based activities.
As for personal response, no difference between Group E and Group C was found in the generation of personal response after treatment. Participants in broth groups did not spare much space for personal response as indicated by the small mean number of units generated (See Table 25). The result can be due to two reasons. Firstly, QtA approach centers on the construction of text ideas and not much sharing of personal anecdotes, which was shown in the treatment process. The other possible explanation is the willingness of personal disclosure in public in Asian culture. As found by Wu and Rubin (2000), Taiwanese students, as compared with US students, were less inclined to reveal personal anecdotes and less indirect in their writing because of the influence of collectivism in Asiatic culture, such as Taiwanese.
Wu and Rubin found that Taiwanese students tend to use more first personal plural pronoun like “we, our, us” to show they are interdependent with the group and that less use of first person singular to avoid personal disclosure (Wu & Rubin, 2000). This phenomenon was corroborated by the current study in that more general statement such as moral lessons behind the fables were given in students’ response writing after QtA sessions. Phrases like “the story tries to tell us that…” or “we should…” were used, by which readers make sense of the text idea in greater picture and were coded as intellectual response. In comparison, fewer thoughts on personal account were given. Avoidance of stating personal opinion could be the reason why the number personal response did not increase.
The boost of intellectual response in response writing after QtA sessions suggests that QtA pushed readers to process the text more actively. The result is in line with Liu and Chu’s (2008) finding that students receiving QtA training generated more reader-based inferences in recall writing, indicating the heavier resort to reader’s experience and knowledge to comprehend the text. In QtA lessons, discussion moves and Queries promoted by teacher
might play an essential role in developing readers’ higher order thinking that involves elaborating and going beyond the given text (Resnick, 1987). A good questioning technique can focus readers’ attention and prompt readers to connect casual events in narrative text (Ellis, 1993; Van den Broek, Tzeng, Risden, Trabasso & Basche, 2001). The display of more intellectual response in response writing shows that readers benefited from QtA in that it not only boosted higher-level thinking skills for the target reading, but also helped readers transfer such skills to other reading and which were shown in short-answer questions and response writing.
That Group E was capable of producing less incorrect response than Group C after treatment indirectly indicates that QtA treatment might possibly boost the ability of making more correct interpretation of the text. QtA approach might enable readers to have deeper processing while reading. Instead of constructing the text at local vocabulary and sentence level, readers were coached to do more global reading by linking text ideas to see the overall picture of the passage and thus possibly internalize the process. The processing for global coherence might in turn facilitate more accurate interpretation of text meaning, overcoming their linguistic deficiency in L2.
While answering short-answer comprehension questions, Group E did not perform better than Group C in factual and interpretive questions. This incongruity is especially intriguing in pondering on the nature of reading assessment. The measure of comprehension questions and written response might command different roles in text processing. Reading comprehension questions that require participants to process information within the restraints of context favor students that paid close attention to the text (Kucan & Beck, 2003).
Comprehension questions may not allow participants to fully show their cognitive sophistication as written response does. Yet, written response may allow students own enough freedom to illustrate their multiple interpretations and elaborate text connections. The finding also enlightens us the importance of employing multiple measures to validate the results.
The finding on the quality of written response is congruent with two relevant studies. The first study is Kucan and Beck’s (2003) research in the reading of expository text by individual student’s thinking aloud and by students discussing in group. They found that students in individual condition engaged in more textual talk while participants in group condition engaged in more intellectual talk. The individual condition in their study may be compared to the control group of the current study because participants in both contexts did not involve in discussion about the text. On the contrary, the group condition in their study is like the experimental group of the current study since participants in two conditions were assigned to discuss the text during reading. Therefore, participating in group discussion about the text may facilitate reader-text interaction and generate more intellectual response. The present finding also echoes Many and Wiseman’s (1992) on finding that teaching approach affects the content of students’ written response to literature. When there was no discussion, students, like the control group in current study, tended to retell the story in efferent stance.
When the discussion centered on literary analysis, readers would respond in efferent stance by identifying literary elements such as character or plot. When discussion focused on literary experience, students generally responded in aesthetic stance showing their involvement in the story or comparing story world and real world. Since Kucan and Beck (2003) refer intellectual response to the efforts made by the readers to make sense of local and global textual ideas, involving textual analysis, and Many and Wiseman (1992) attribute discussion centering on literary experience as a step stone toward taking aesthetic stance to engaging in personal views, it might be safely concluded that QtA approach helps readers go beyond the surface of the text by analyzing the text and connecting the text with reader experience and knowledge.
Students’ Perceptions of QtA Lessons
Students’ responses in questionnaires provided insights regarding their views of QtA approach. This includes the reasons why they like or dislike the approach, the abilities they
perceived cultivated through QtA training and the feasibility of future use of QtA approach.
Their perceptions illuminate the QtA processes as seen by readers and also support the significant performance of comprehension measured in comprehension questions and response writing.
First, almost all of the students liked QtA approach and were willing to receive more QtA training. A majority of students expressed that they like to grapple the underlying meaning of the text, which assists their reading comprehension. This supports Anderson and Briggs’s (2011) suggestion that teaching the reciprocity of reading and writing can facilitate students
First, almost all of the students liked QtA approach and were willing to receive more QtA training. A majority of students expressed that they like to grapple the underlying meaning of the text, which assists their reading comprehension. This supports Anderson and Briggs’s (2011) suggestion that teaching the reciprocity of reading and writing can facilitate students