CHAPTER SIX IMPLICATIONS AND CONCLUSION
This chapter provides pedagogical implications and conclusions. First, research questions will be answered. Next, recommendations for classroom practice will be presented. Finally, limitations of the study and suggestions for future research will be provided.
Answers to Research Questions
Question 1: What are the online reading strategies used by EFL learners in Taiwan?
The EFL learners’ online reading strategy use is answered from five angles: (1) the overall strategy patterns, (2) factors influencing strategy use, including language proficiency, (3) text topic and difficulty level, (4) computer skill, and (5) background knowledge. First of all, due to the learners’ concern of convenience and immediacy in accessing online information as well as the cultural factors of Chinese reading classes, Support strategies were the single category that made up the overwhelming proportion of the strategy use, with Translation, Dictionary, and Highlight assuming predominant roles. Problem-solving strategies, which required direct attention to work with textual information, were scarcely used. Support strategies, the most frequently used strategies, were also adopted prior to the least used Problem-solving strategies. The sharp differences between Support and Problem-solving strategies in terms of frequencies and sequences of strategy use may account for readers’ polarized choices of strategy use. In addition to pre-defined strategies, qualitative investigation yielded four additional strategies, including Navigating, Information gathering, Interface changing, and Usability problem reporting strategies. These strategies assisted readers in navigating online texts smoothly, finding relevant information to build up background knowledge, establishing a personal environment to facilitate online
reading, and making suggestions for a user-friendly web design.
Second, strategies used by EFL learners differed with L2 language proficiency, with the High proficiency group using more Global strategies, whereas Low proficiency group employing more Socio-affective strategies. Further qualitative investigation showed that the strategy use among groups with different proficiency levels not only differed in “what” strategies they used, but also varied in “when” and
“how” they used strategies (Anderson, 1991). For example, the strategy sequence analyses showed that the High proficiency group tended to use Global strategies prior to trying Support strategies to get an overview of the text, whereas the sequence of the Low proficiency group's use of Global strategies was clearly more erratic, occurring sometimes at the beginning, sometimes in the middle, and sometimes at the end of the reading process. This difference on strategy use sequence was also found in case studies. Unlike the High proficiency students (James and Chris) who tried Global strategies (Preview and Keyword) in the very beginning of reading to help them get an overview of the study, students from the Low proficiency group (Amber and Tim) randomly used Global strategies towards the end of the task. In addition, despite that Translation (Support strategies) was the top strategy used by both High and Low proficiency groups, the High proficiency group used it as an assisting tool only to consolidate their understanding, while the Low proficiency group entirely relied on it to get a short-cut to understanding without caring if the translated text was proper. It seems that more proficient learners adopted sequences of strategies more appropriately and used strategies more effectively than less proficient learners.
Third, although students’ use of strategy types did not change with different topics, Article 2 with the topic of Pyramids demanded a greater number of strategies than the other three articles, which can be explained by students’ lack of background knowledge. The less familiar the topic was, the more strategies students used
(Brantmeier, 2003; 2005). In addition, strategy use did not differ with the text difficulty. However, subtle strategy use differences could be found when language proficiency came into interaction. For example, in reading more challenging texts, the High proficiency group took a global approach to gain main ideas, whereas the Low proficiency group mainly relied on social interactions to solve reading problems. It appears that different texts’ difficulties resulted in different strategy use only within diverse language groups.
Fourth, computer skills played an important role in online strategy use. Students with better computer skills were more able to personalize the reading environment for increased motivation and to utilize multimedia features for better comprehension.
Even lower proficiency students could increase their background knowledge and language learning repertoires by searching outwards and communicating with peers.
With the trend of globalization steadily growing and the chances of reading online becoming more and more prevalent, training students how to read effectively and how to take advantage of resources available online is as important as boosting up students’ English proficiency (Coiro, 2005; MacNabb, 2006). Finally, background information, the last factor influencing strategy use, was built by relating one’s own existing knowledge or searching additional information and seeking help from peers.
Background knowledge has become useful in understanding online texts.
Question 2: What is the relationship between reading comprehension and strategy use?
The findings of this study indicated that different strategy types contribute to different levels of comprehension results. First, Support strategies, the most frequently used strategies, were the major predictor of comprehension; that is, the use of Support strategies contributed to an increase in total recall scores, recall scores on
main ideas, and recall scores on details. However, in situations when students in general read the most difficult text (Article 4 with the topic of St. Patrick’s Day) and the text with unfamiliar topic, an exclusive dependence of Support strategies did not bring about better comprehension on main ideas and details. Students needed to use other strategies, such as Global strategies, to increase their comprehension. Second, Global strategies, despite that their frequency use was not particularly high, contributed to an increase of scores on main ideas and details when students were reading more challenging texts (Articles 3 and 4) and were a stronger predictor than Support strategies. The positive effects of Global strategies on comprehension were most obvious when the Low proficiency group were reading difficult texts. In other words, if the Low group students are willing to try Global strategies, their comprehension will increase. Third, Socio-affective strategies worked well with the Low group, but produced counter effects on the High proficiency group in reading Article 2. Combined with results of strategy preference, this phenomenon can be interpreted that the Low proficiency group depends on social communication, while the High proficiency group relies on introspection in solving reading problems.
To conclude, although the use of Support strategies dominate the strategy use and contribute to most of the comprehension gains, the sole dependence on Support strategies does not successfully predict the increase in scores on main ideas and details when the students are reading more challenging texts. It is Global strategies that significantly contribute to higher comprehension scores. The effect of Global strategies is most evident among the Low proficiency group, who often confine themselves to the use of Support strategies and Socio-affective strategies in reading.
Therefore, Global strategies such as overviewing a key concept, identifying their logical connections, and making predictions have to be encouraged in a reading class, especially for less proficient learners.
Question 3: What are students’ perceptions of the effectiveness of the online reading program, English Reading Online?
This question can be answered from students’ feedback on (1) the fifteen strategy buttons, (2) system interface design, (3) learning effects, and (4) text selection. First of all, students in general showed positive feedback towards the design of the fifteen strategy buttons. Global strategies received the most positive feedback, followed by Support strategies, and Socio-affective strategies, with Problem-solving strategies being the last. With regard to individual strategy buttons, Translation, Dictionary, Preview, and Keyword were considered most useful, whereas Semantic Mapping, Speed Reading, Grammar, and Question were regarded least useful. These results suggest that the distinction between favored and disfavored strategy buttons is drawn from immediacy (Leu at al., 2004). Strategy buttons such as Preview, Keyword, and Translation that give instant feedback and are relatively easy to operate are recognized by most students, whereas strategy buttons such as Semantic Mapping and Speed Reading that require more time and efforts are discarded by students. In addition, correlation analyses have shown that students’ perceived usefulness of strategy buttons positively correlated with their actual strategy use. This finding suggests that convincing students of the usefulness of strategies should have priority over strategy instruction.
Second, despite the satisfactory rating of the interface design in the post-task survey, students pointed out the needs to construct a more personalized and user-friendly program in the final reflection, including more colors to annotate, more online dictionaries to use, and more music choices. This entails the demands to improve the program interface design.
Third, regarding the learning effects, most students showed positive feedback in the post task survey, whereas a few students commented on the importance of using
strategy tools wisely in order to ensure the best learning effects. For example, in addition to taking advantage of the immediate feedback given in Translation, an exclusive reliance without digesting information will distort the original purpose of the inclusion of this strategy tool. Knowledge gained easily without digestion will not be retained long (Chapelle, 2005; Tseng, 1998). After all, tools are meant for facilitation, Students need to read for themselves in order to get the meaning across.
Fourth, based on the results that students preferred to read articles that were just about their own level and that did not require too much background knowledge, it could be inferred that when selecting texts, teachers need to consider linguistic difficulty and readers’ background knowledge.
To conclude, students have positive feedback on this program in terms of the design of strategy tools, interface design, and learning effects. In addition, they welcome the integration online reading into the existing curriculum. Special attention needs to be given to the intelligent use of online tools to ensure the best learning results.
Pedagogical Implications
This dissertation has focused on exploring the online reading strategies employed by EFL learners, searching for the relationship between strategy use and comprehension, and examining the effectiveness of a web-based reading program.
Findings of this study bear important implications in reading instruction.
The Inclusion of Strategy Instruction
This study shows that the integration of strategy instruction into the reading class is essential. First, students in general tended to use a fixed set of reading strategies they had long been accustomed to regardless of the topics and difficulty levels of the text. The pedagogical implication is that, to improve students’ online reading performance, teachers need to incorporate strategy awareness training components
before engaging students in online tasks (Chang, 2005; Coiro, 2005; Schmar-Dobler, 2003). Students need to orchestrate strategy use to deal with different reading demands. In implementing reading strategy instruction in L2 classes, teachers can raise students’ awareness of strategy use, model the strategies, scaffold students’
learning, guide their practices, then evaluate, and provide feedback. The ultimate goal is to enable students to use strategies spontaneously (Chamot & O’Malley, 1994;
Grabe, 2005; Harrison, 2004; Oxford, et al., 1990; Singhal, 2004).
Second, the results show that proficiency influence strategy use. When encountering challenging texts, proficient readers adjusted their strategy use by using Global strategies while reading to enhance comprehension. As students can be more successful due to their strategy use, these strategies used by more successful students can be taught to help the less successful ones. The notion of the “teachability” of language learning strategies encourages teachers to explore the potential of teaching learning strategies to enhance students’ ability to learn the language (Cohen, 1998).
Third, data gathered from case studies show that students with better computer skills yet limited English proficiency have a better chance of navigating smoothly.
The implication is that students with comparatively low proficiency can compensate for their low English abilities by making good use of their computer skills. In an era when digital media—such as online reading, online navigation and research, hypermedia interpretation, and many-to-many synchronous and asynchronous communications—have become the trend, strategies on how to search for information and how to increase social interactions online could scaffold students’ learning (Leu et al., 2004). Students should be taught web-based reading strategies that can help them make good use of online resources in ways that compensate for their limited English proficiency.
Strategies for Teaching Online Reading
Findings of this study reveal that students have problems related to getting overloaded with links, getting lost in the navigation track, and getting confused by the difficult text content. They also rely heavily on meaning technologies, such as Translation and Dictionary, to aid comprehension when reading online texts.
Therefore, in addition to print-related strategies, students need to use various online- related strategies that help them adjust to the hypermedia features of the text. This in turn affects a number of areas in reading instruction. Proposed solutions include scaffolding students to find and synthesize information on the Internet, explicitly teaching students strategies to read Internet texts, and informing students about the intelligent use of online tools (Schmar-Dobler, 2003).
First, teachers need to prepare themselves to catch up with what has been changed in the digital age. As even newer technology will emerge from new technologies, teachers need to be proficient in knowing how to support students in new literacy classrooms. Second, as students in this study were constantly lost in the links, teachers need to provide clear search engine guidelines and refining keywords strategies. By using appropriate and powerful search engines and using correct keywords, students have a better chance to find information they want.
Third, since online information is abundant and unfiltered, it is important to teach students how to critically select information they want. Such skills are often neglected in traditional classrooms because information resources like textbooks are assumed correct. Students need to learn how to make decisions, critically analyze, and evaluate information (Shetzer & Warschauer, 2000).
Finally, teachers need to train learners in appropriate uses of meaning technologies while reading online. Text captions, machine translations, hypertext dictionaries and glossaries, text-to-speech applications, and auto summarizers should
be used wisely (Hubbard, 2004). To ensure the optimal use of meaning technologies to enhance learning, students should be advised to read for a purpose, not to read for reading’s sake. In other words, translating every word will not help comprehension.
Heavy reliance on Translators keeps readers from knowing the meaning of the text and prevents readers from thinking about the meaning. Students may just know the details or literal meaning of the word, without linking the text with their knowledge.
In conclusion, in online reading, the teachers need to teach students to define an information task or problem, to select appropriate resources, to solve the problem, to locate the needed information, to read the material, to synthesize information, and to evaluate the product and problem-solving process. In this way, students will become more critical consumers of the information.
Web-Based Program Design
Based on students’ feedback on English Reading Online, suggestions for future program design include: (1) pre-select links, (2) incorporate more strategies, and (3) make multiple input noticeable. First, from students’ reports of being overloaded with links and lost in consulting links, it is suggested that links can be pre-selected to avoid disorientation in navigation. Unlike a teacher-centered classroom where materials tend to follow a set scope and sequence, computer-based programs are flexible and have open-ended scope and sequence. This allows learners more freedom to pursue the link they perceive useful. Such flexibility creates opportunities for learners to find new answers and solutions to questions and problems, but sometimes might result in being lost in the search. Disorientation is possible due to users of hypertext to becoming lost because of more degrees of freedom and dimensions which users navigate (Conklin, 1987). Therefore, to create a decent online learning program with hyperlinks to a wider range of resources and learning materials, the program designer needs to first inform the user of the resources, help buttons, and navigation maps
within this program so as to prevent learners from getting lost. Also, teachers need to carefully select links with guided information instead of letting students explore extensively without a focus. This way, teachers can make sure such link is valid and the features of hypertext can be maximized. It is called “affordances” by Beatty (2003). Teachers should make clear to their students what a program can do through devices of maps of resources, clear menus of options, help buttons, and easy navigation options.
Second, future reading programs should incorporate those strategies that are actually used and reported to be useful, but are not designed in the existing program.
For example, students reported that they would like to have more personalized features in the reading program to make their reading environment more enjoyable.
These personalized strategies can be implemented by adding more options for students to choose, such as more colors to use in highlighting the text, more space to store their favorite links, and more mechanisms for students to exchange their personal judgment about reading. These features are considered useful in facilitating reading and therefore should be integrated into future program design.
Third, as students in this study showed their preference in reading a highlighted text, teachers need to draw readers’ attention to the important aspects of the language in CALL materials (Hegelheimer & Chapelle, 2000; Sharwood-Smith, 1993). For example, in English Reading Online, students were able to highlight vocabulary, problematic parts, and cultural notes by themselves. In future program design, teachers can pre-select areas of language that is worthy of special attention and make them noticeable by highlighting, such as adding extra explanations via highlighted hyperlinks so that the targeted features are made salient and noticeable.
The Importance of Global Strategy Use
This study shows that Global strategies consume the least amount of time, are
widely adopted by high achieving students, and contribute to better comprehension in reading more challenging texts. Global strategies are therefore the most efficient strategy and need to be explicitly taught in class.
Global strategies help students establish reading purposes and monitor reading processes, in turn allowing them to better comprehend the text and retain information (Harrison, 2004; Nuttall, 1996; Singhal, 2004). Teachers can accomplish this by providing activities of anticipating text contents, previewing text structures, and reviewing text-specific vocabulary. For example, teachers can ask students to predict what will happen by providing illustrations that accompany the text. Teachers can also encourage students to gain a general sense of the text by going through the titles, the subtitles, charts, or other visuals before the actual reading of the text. To help students become more aware of the text structure and therefore grab the key concepts of the text, teachers can use outlines to present the rhetorical organization of the text. Finally, reviewing keywords that are essential to text understanding will help students guess the main idea of the topic and prepare them for further reading.
Computer-Mediated Communication in Reading Classrooms
This study showed that the Low proficiency group students used more Socio-affective strategies than the High proficiency group; they also found interaction with peers could lower their anxiety. Besides, for the Low proficiency group with less confidence in their own reading abilities, discussing with peers and other netters encouraged them to move a step forward toward reading. Moreover, the use of Socio-affective strategies was the sole predictor of better comprehension while the Low proficiency group was reading texts of unfamiliar topics. The aforementioned results prove that Socio-affective strategies are preferable and beneficial for the low English proficiency learners.
To create a collaborative learning environment that facilitates the use of
Socio-affective strategies among less proficient EFL students, more computer-mediated communication (CMC) activities can be constructed. Teachers may set up web-based bulletin boards, discussion forums, and various kinds of chat rooms to facilitate online communication. Learners can be engaged in small group discussions or be connected with global learners for focused discussions on concrete topics. Discussions can take place before reading when students predict text contents, during reading when students draw knowledge from experts, or after reading when students share and reflect upon their reading process. In conclusion, in future reading classes, teachers can take advantage of CMC to create an interactive, but stress-free environment for students. Within this reading environment, students, especially less proficient learners, can increase their language production and scaffold learning through peer sharing of comments and negotiation of meaning among peers.
Text Selection
Students expressed in the post-task survey that their reading problems were caused by lack of vocabulary and background knowledge and they also indicated their needs to select articles of their own preference. Therefore, teachers need to consider suitability of the content and learners’ choice when selecting reading materials (Nuttall, 1996). To begin with, texts should be at or a little above students’ current level. Text difficulty does only reside in the structural and lexical difficulty; equally important is the background knowledge required on the part of the reader. Therefore, in addition to using software such as Readability to test the structural complexity, teachers also need to take students’ background knowledge into consideration.
Articles that require too much background knowledge should be selected carefully. If they are selected, students need to be provided with enough background knowledge prior to reading. Finally, students’ reading preferences need to be surveyed prior to text selection. Contents interesting to students will ensure sustained motivation in
reading. To sum up, text selection should not just be based on teacher’s perspectives but also consider students’ needs.
Limitations and Suggestions for Future Research
This study provides empirical evidence of how EFL learners approached online reading and how language proficiency, text topics, and text difficulty levels influenced their strategy use. It also investigated the relationship between strategy use and reading comprehension as well as evaluated the effectiveness of a web-based Reading program—English Reading Online. In this section, limitations of this study are first presented, followed by suggestions for future research.
The first limitation is on participants. As this study was explorative, the findings of strategy patterns can only be applied to similar groups—English majors in a university of science and technology. In addition, this study drew 30 English majors from an Internet English class. As they were from the same class, the gap between High and Low proficiency students existed, but was not very distinct1. In the future, to enlarge the gap of proficiency levels between students, participants can come from different universities to represent learners of different levels so that the observed difference in strategy use can be more meaningful. Furthermore, the current research focuses on how proficiency influences strategy use. A number of individual learner differences and situational factors such as learners’ belief about language learning, age factors, motivation, and gender are related to strategy use (Ellis, 1994). Therefore, future research can explore how readers with the above different backgrounds read online texts.
The second limitation is on classroom settings. The purposes of the study are both exploratory and descriptive. In other words, the goals are to investigate the use of a new medium for reading and to document how readers complete the reading task.
1 TOEFL sample scores ranged from 315 to 481. See Appendix O for details.
Therefore, the optimal classroom settings would be giving as much time as students desired, allowing students to freely explore and fulfill the reading task. However, due to limited administrative resources, the researcher has found the most possible solution in finding enough time for students to complete online tasks—two hours per lesson. For future research, more time could be given to students to see if they could use more or fewer strategies in reading online texts.
The third limitation is on categorization of strategies. The four types of reading strategies were pre-defined based on existing literature on L2 reading strategy because patterns of online reading strategies have been scarcely documented. In the future, when more and more participants’ strategy data are collected by the computer tracking system in English Reading Online, strategy use can be filtered by Factor Analysis so that similar strategies can be grouped together. In other words, strategy categories will be sorted out by the data—students’ actual strategy use, not just by the theories found in the literature.
Finally, this study has interesting findings that students’ use of certain types of strategies influenced their comprehension. The pedagogical implications are to encourage students to use these helpful strategies found in this empirical study.
However, whether students will use these strategies that are proved to be helpful by research findings depends on students’ attitudes and beliefs. According to the theory of reasoned action, attitudes are a function of beliefs. Generally speaking, “a person who believes that performing a given behavior will lead to mostly positive outcomes will hold a favorable attitude toward performing the behavior, while a person who believes that performing the behavior will lead to mostly negative outcomes will hold an unfavorable attitude” (Ajzen & Fishbein, 1980:9). Beliefs determine attitudes, attitudes towards the behaviors result in intention, and intention finally leads to actual behavior. Therefore, to ensure the best result of strategy instruction, teachers may first
survey students’ attitudes towards strategy use, investigate their preference for strategy use, and seek to understand the factors influencing strategy use. After that, teachers can integrate research findings with students’ actual beliefs in strategy use.
The final goal is to help students voluntarily adopt these strategies in reading.
Conclusion
This study has provided empirical evidence on how EFL learners read online, how strategy use influences reading comprehension, and how a future web-based reading environment could be constructed to ensure learning effects. In an era where meaning is typically presented with multiple media forms, the findings of this study can enrich our understanding of how students approach online texts. With suggestions for strategy instruction, we can help students improve their EFL reading abilities and prepare them to meet the new literacy demands in the future.
