Results of the reaction questionnaire

The results of the reaction questionnaire, including seven yes-no and open-ended questions, are presented both in excerpts and in figures so that the participants’ ideas and opinions can be expressed more precisely and, at the same time, they can be both qualitatively and quantitatively triangulated with the results of the other three instruments. With regard to the excerpts from the reaction questionnaire, they were originally written in Chinese by the participants and later translated by the teacher-researcher herself.

Question One: In general, do you like the e-books in this program? Why or

why not? Over 80 percent of the participants (80.73%) chose a positive position while

only four of them (3.67%) clearly expressed their dislike for the e-books because they still could not comprehend the content and had no interest in English. As for those who favored English e-books, they thought that the e-books made them happy, gave them the sense of achievement, helped them learn many things in their free time and improved their four skills of English. For example, the participant, Ade, who has relatively lower proficiency and interest in English, mentioned how he likes English e-books: “I like English e-books because I feel happy whenever finishing them, which makes me forget unpleasant things temporarily” (excerpt 1; see Appendix H for the original Chinese text; translation was done in gist, not literally). Another participant, Paige, said that she had never had the experience like this and she enjoyed it a great deal. A girl with relatively higher proficiency in English, Tina, elaborated why she likes the e-books by contrasting the present with the past (excerpt 2; see Appendix H for the original Chinese text):

I like English e-books very much. I used to think English books were too hard to understand, so I never wanted to find English books to read.

However, through this chance of reading English e-books, I knew that they were totally different from what I used to imagine. When the teacher said that we were going to read English books, I thought they were only dull and tedious articles, but they turned out to be both interesting and lively.

Moreover, some of the participants recognized the exclusive advantages of the e-books in that oral reading, animations as well as highlighting helped them learn and comprehend the text, which is something that printed books can never do. With these e-books, they said they would not waste time fooling around any more; instead, they would read English e-books as a pastime to learn and to enjoy.

Question Two: Which e-book do you like most? Why? The top ten popular e-books in order were No. 163, 301, 304, Stories, 138, 161, 201, 305, 149 and 159.

Six of them were Stories, three of them were Fairy Tales and Fables, and only one of them was Nonfiction. This result again confirms that the most popular genre is Stories.

As for the reasons, they preferred the e-books with music/sound effects, animations, oral reading and interactive activities. Encouraging, interesting and familiar content was also attractive to them.

Question Three: What is the crucial factor when you decided which e-book to

read? Why? This question can help to answer the second research question of this

present study and the responses can be triangulated with the related results from the self-report form regarding the features of e-books which have positively changed the participants’ reading attitude. The responses showed that reasons related to the content and features of the e-books were equally important. Animations (18.54%), genres (16.29%), difficulty (14.04%) and oral reading (11.24%) in total accounted for 60.11% of the reasons while titles (8.43%), pictures (7.87%), music/sound effects (6.74%) and highlighting (4.49%) together accounted for 27.53%. They commented that fables could teach them the moral to prevent them from making similar mistakes, e-books with certain degree of difficulty were more challenging, and e-books with those features mentioned above made reading in English more interesting and helped them understand the e-books more easily and learn to guess the meaning of unknown words from the context.

Question Four: In general, do you think the e-books reinforce your attitude

towards reading in English? Why? This question can provide answers to be

triangulated with the results of the other instruments in answering the first research question of this present study concerning the participants’ attitudinal change. Over 82% of the participants (82.57%) reported that they liked reading in English more

than they did before and only nine of them (8.26%) thought their attitude was not reinforced at all because they believed that they either still could not understand the English e-books or already had high interest in reading in English. As for those who perceived their positive attitudinal change, they valued the usefulness and helpfulness of the features of e-books, detected improvement in English proficiency, especially their reading and listening skills, and enjoyed reading English e-books for fun as well as for learning. Participants Peter and Gina mentioned that they found tests for reading comprehension easier for them now; participant Hank also stated that English texts used to make him sleepy, but he was happy to find English e-books understandable to him now. The participant, Helen, commented that e-books were better than printed books because the latter had no attractive animations and the former had the function of highlighting to indicate which word was being articulated.

Two higher-proficient participants, Daphne and Doris, also reported what they benefited from the e-books respectively (excerpts 3 and 4; see Appendix H for the original Chinese texts):

In the past when I had an English book at hand, the first feeling came to me was to leave it there, not to mention to read it, but now, I will take out the English books in my house and I find that they are not as difficult as I imagined; besides, they are also very interesting. (excerpt 3)

I read some English books before, but the pictures in them could not move.

Therefore, it is hard to figure out the meanings of unknown words.

E-books actually can make reading in English more dynamic and interesting. (excerpt 4)

Question 5: Will you continue reading English e-books in the future? Why or

why not? Over seventy percent of the participants (72.48%) gave a positive response,

but 15.60% of them said they would not read English e-books any more. The reasons

for being unwilling to continue were that they confessed they were too lazy and passive to read on their own, that they did not have much free time before the coming joint entrance exam, the Basic Competence Test (BC Test), that they had no access to either computers or the Internet at home, and that they could not read in English. As for those who promised that they would keep reading English e-books, they believed the e-books were quite useful and helpful so that they would treat reading in English as a pastime to enjoy or a good way to advance their English.

Question Six: Will you recommend this e-book ERP to your younger schoolmates? Why or why not? Over ninety percent of the participants (94.50%)

would recommend this e-book ERP to their younger schoolmates and only three of them (2.75%), who thought that it took up too much time and that some of the students did not really read the e-books attentively as required, would not recommend it. Nevertheless, almost all of the participants believed that it would also work well for their younger schoolmates since it had had positive effects on themselves. They also believed that students all liked to go to the computer classroom and this kind of reading activity would reinforce attitude towards reading in English, compared with listening to the lectures in the classroom.

Question Seven: Do you have any opinions or suggestions about this e-book

ERP? Over sixty percent of the participants (60.55%) were quite satisfied with this

reading activity, saying that they had no opinions or suggestions because they thought it great and wonderful and that they only wish they could join such an interesting activity again. They also recognized the privilege of choosing e-books on their own, as Ivey and Broaddus (2001) and Walker (1987) suggested what language teachers do to maintain students’ interest when they execute a reading program. Surprisingly, eleven of them (10.09%) suggested the teacher-researcher have a stricter control over the progress and process of reading by asking students to read the same e-book every

day or to finish one e-book within a certain period of time, check if students achieve the goal every time lest they should fall far behind the schedule, and ask some questions related to the content after they finish one e-book. In addition, a few participants suggested that she provide more e-books with more genres as well as features and exclude the e-books with boring content or poor features from the list.

The last thing that they suggested is related to the span of time for which this e-book ERP should last. Eight of them (7.34%) believed that it should be extended to three years, which certainly would result in more positive and long-term effects on students.

This suggestion is really an encouraging support to this present study in that it implies the participants’ high recognition of the English e-books as well as the e-book ERP.

在文檔中 多媒體電子書對英語學習者閱讀態度的影響 (頁 70-75)