A SURVEY ON LEARNERS’ STRATEGIES IN READING COMPREHENSION AT CAN THO UNIVERSITY (2)

CAN THO UNIVERSITY
SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

***

A SURVEY ON LEARNERS’ STRATEGIES IN
READING COMPREHENSION AT CAN THO UNIVERSITY

Trung tâm Học liệu ĐH Cần Thơ@Tài liệu học tập và nghiên cứu
B.A. Thesis

Supervisor
Luu Hoang Anh, M.A

Student
Tran Thi Diu
Student’s Code: 7055590
Class: NN0552A2
Course: 31

Can Tho, May 2009


CONTENTS
Contents .......................................................................................................................... i
Acknowledgements....................................................................................................... iii
Abstracts ....................................................................................................................... iv
List of tables and figures................................................................................................ v
Chapter 1: Introduction .............................................................................................. 1
1.1. Rationale............................................................................................................ 1

1.2. Research aims.................................................................................................... 2
1.3. Research questions............................................................................................ 2
1.4. Hypotheses........................................................................................................ 2
1.5. Organization ...................................................................................................... 2
Chapter 2: Literature Review..................................................................................... 4
2.1. The nature of reading comprehension............................................................... 4
2.2. Reading strategies ............................................................................................. 5
2.2.1. An overview of learning strategies ............................................................. 5

Trung2.2.2.
tâmReading
Học liệu
ĐH Cần Thơ@Tài liệu học tập và nghiên cứu
strategies.......................................................................................
6
2.3. The effects of reading strategies on reading comprehension.......................... 11
2.4. Framework of my study.................................................................................. 12
Chapter 3: Research Methodology........................................................................... 13
3.1. Research design............................................................................................... 13
3.2. Participants ..................................................................................................... 13
3.3. Research instruments ...................................................................................... 13
3.3.1. Questionnaire ........................................................................................ 13
3.3.2. Test.......................................................................................................... 14
3.4. Procedures ....................................................................................................... 15
3.4.1. Administering the test ............................................................................. 15
3.4.2. Administering the questionnaire............................................................. 15
Chapter 4: Results...................................................................................................... 16
4.1. Students’ use of reading strategies ................................................................. 16
4.2. The differences in the strategy use among good, average, and poor
readers ......................................................................................................................... 19

i


4.2.1. Test results and classification of good, average and poor readers .......... 19
4.2.2. Differences in the use of reading strategies ............................................ 20
Chapter 5: Discussions, limitations, suggestions for further research, and
conclusions .......................................................................................................... ……23
5.1. Discussions ....................................................................................................... 23
5.1.1. The cognitive and meta-cognitive reading strategies use of the
second-year English- major students ………………………………………………23
5.1.2. The differences in reading strategies use among good, average, and poor
readers……………………….………………………………………………………..24
5.2. Limitations…………………………………………………………………….24
5.3 Pedagogical implications and suggestions for further research…………......... 24
5.3.1. Pedagogical implications ....................................................................... 24
5.3.2. Suggestions for further research ............................................................ 25
5.4. Conclusions ......................................................................................................... 25
References.................................................................................................................... 26
Appendices................................................................................................................... 29
Trung
tâm Học liệu ĐH Cần Thơ@Tài liệu học tập và nghiên cứu
Appendix 1........................................................................................................ 29
Appendix 2........................................................................................................ 32

ii


ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

During implementing this thesis, I have received much help and contribution

from many people to whom I would like to express my deep gratitude.
First and foremost, my thesis hardly finished without valuable encouragement,
advice, comment from my supervisor, Mrs. Luu Hoang Anh. I could not forget her
enthusiasm to help me correct every part of the thesis and her care about my teaching
practicum at high school.
Second, my regards are respectively sent to all teachers of the English Department
for their
encouragement,
guidance,
Mrs.liệu
Duong
Oanh,
Mrs. Phuong
Trung
tâm
Học liệu ĐH
Cần especially
Thơ@Tài
họcPhi
tập
và nghiên
cứu
Hoang Yen. Also, my sincere gratitude is sent to Mr. Nguyen Buu Huan, Mr. Luu
Nguyen Quoc Hung, Mrs. Nguyen Thi Bich Thuy, and Mrs. Huynh Chi Minh Huyen
during the time I collected the data for my research. And I would like to acknowledge
Mr. Phan Viet Thang who gave me useful instructions to analyze the data using SPSS
program.
And I could not forget my family- my parents and my brothers who were always
by my side when I got tired and bored.
Last but not least, my friends and my roommates are the persons who always cared

about me and gave much support.

iii


ABSTRACT

Reading plays an important part not only in daily life, jobs, but also in academic
contexts where reading is considered helpful for other subjects. For this reason, it is
crucial for students to equip themselves with vital strategies to enhance their reading
comprehension, especially in doing a reading test. This research aims to survey the
reading strategies that English-major students employ to enhance their reading
performance. The participants were 90 students of both Bachelor and Education of
English. Data were collected through a test in reading comprehension and a
questionnaire on reading comprehension. Later, the data was analyzed using the SPSS
program. The results of the analysis showed that meta-cognitive strategies were used
more frequently than cognitive strategies. However, the mean scores of cognitive and
Trung
tâm Học liệu ĐH Cần Thơ@Tài liệu học tập và nghiên cứu
meta-cognitive strategies that good readers used were really lower than that of average
and poor readers. And it can be drawn that reading strategies themselves do not
determine reading outcome, and there are other factors that may influence the reading
outcome such as readers’ interest in the topic, style, layout and organization of the
text, readers’ physical and emotional state and self image, etc.

iv


LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table/Figure

Page

Table 3.1: Factors of the questionnaire items...................................................... 14
Table 3.2: Academic grading of Vietnam ........................................................... 15
Table 3.3: The division of good, average and poor readers................................. 15
Table 4.1: Reliability Coefficient of the questionnaire........................................ 15
Table 4.2: Descriptive statistics of the reading strategies.................................... 16
Table 4.3: The mean scores of cognitive and meta-cognitive strategies ............ 18
Table 4.4: The mean scores of retrieval, comprehending, planning, and
monitoring strategies...........................................................................................19
Table 4.5: The test results ................................................................................... 20

Trung
tâmTheHọc
ĐH
Cần Thơ@Tài
liệu
học
tập and
và nghiên cứu
Table 4.6:
meanliệu
scores
of reading
strategy use of
poor,
average,
good readers .........................................................................................................20

Table 4.7: The differences in the use of cognitive strategies .............................. 21
Table 4.8: The differences in the use of meta-cognitive strategies .................... 21
Figure 4.1: The total mean of the questionnaire factors ...................................... 17
Figure 4.2: The mean scores of learners’ reading strategies ............................... 18
Figure 4.3: The mean scores of four factors ........................................................ 19
Figure 4.4: The mean scores of reading strategy use among poor, average,
and good readers .................................................................................................. 21
Figure 4.5: The differences in reading strategy use among good, average, and
good readers .........................................................................................................22

v


CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
In this chapter, I would like to state the rationale, the research aims, research
questions, and the hypotheses of doing this research. The organization of the
thesis is also included afterwards.

1.1. Rationale
Nowadays, reading plays more and more important role in our life. Reading
takes place in daily life, for example, when we read newspapers, email messages,
instructions on some products, etc. Not only in daily life, we can find reading
necessary in the working place when we read an announcement, document, or a
complaint from customers, especially in the academic environment where people
have more chances to read. For instance, in the university environment, students
have to learn many subjects, and these subjects require a large amount of
knowledge from students. In other words, if students want to get the best results,

Trung tâm Học liệu ĐH Cần Thơ@Tài liệu học tập và nghiên cứu

there is no way but reading. They read to understand the content of the book.
Furthermore, they also read from other sources such as the Internet, periodicals, and
other reference books, etc to widen their knowledge. Specifically, for English-major
students of Education, reading is considered more vital because reading is one of
four basic skills that they will teach their students at high school.
Now, I am senior. After the teaching practicum at high school, I will become a
teacher. I really concern about how to help students study better, especially reading.
Reading is considered important because most part of English test in graduation,
entrance exams is from reading. Usually, at school, when students do a reading
exercise or reading test, they just do and do like the saying “practice makes
perfect”. They receive fewer instructions from teacher about how to deal with the
test with the highest results. Recent approaches to reading have concentrated on
students’ strategies for coping with the text: what they are, how they contribute to
better understanding. For these reasons, I want to conduct a research on some
reading strategies that students in Can Tho University employ to do a test in the

PAGE 1


hope that I can find those effects of reading strategies on students’ outcome. And I
name my research as “A survey on learners’ strategies in reading
comprehension at Can Tho University”.
1.2. Research aims:
In this research, I want to:
(1). find out the strategies that English major sophomores employ when doing a
reading test and the frequent use of these strategies.
(2). find out the difference in the use of reading strategies among good, average,
and poor readers.
1.3. Research questions:
This research is guided by questions:

(1). What are the reading strategies (cognitive and meta-cognitive strategies)
that English sophomores at Can Tho University use? How often are they used?
(2). What is difference in the use of the reading strategies among good, average,
and poor readers?
1.4. Hypotheses
Trung
tâm Học liệu ĐH Cần Thơ@Tài liệu học tập và nghiên cứu
I hypothesize that

(1). Students often use reading strategies (cognitive and meta-cognitive
strategies) when doing tests and they use meta-cognitive strategies more often than
cognitive ones.
(2). Good students use reading strategies more frequently than average ones, and
average students employ these strategies more often than poor ones.
1.5. Organization
This thesis consists of five chapters.
Chapter I – Introduction: The rationale, the research aims, the research
questions, the hypotheses, as well as the organization of the thesis are introduced in
this section.
Chapter II – Literature review: A report of other researchers’ ideas and
statements relating to the thesis will be mentioned in this part.
Chapter III – Research methodology. The research design, participants, research
instruments, and procedures of the study are presented.

PAGE 2


Chapter IV– Results: In this chapter, data collected from the instruments (a
questionnaire, and a reading test for students) will be analyzed and synthesized.
Chapter V – Discussions, limitations, and suggestions for further research, and

conclusions: The last chapter will mention discussions, limitations, pedagogical
implications, suggestions for further research, and conclusions.

Trung tâm Học liệu ĐH Cần Thơ@Tài liệu học tập và nghiên cứu

PAGE 3


CHAPTER 2
LITERATURE REVIEW
In this chapter, I would like to state some ideas, insights of other researchers
about the definition of reading and reading comprehension, some reading
strategies that affect reading comprehension, and the differences in reading
strategy use among good, and poor readers through the researches they have
done relating to my thesis.

2.1. The nature of reading comprehension
Generally speaking, reading is said to be the involvement of the readers, the
text, and the interaction between readers and text (Rumelhart, 1997, as cited in Jo,
A. and Mary, L. F. 1997). According to Grabe (1997) cited in Keiko, H. (1999),
reading is said to be interactive between readers and text. To acquire reading,
readers need to have sufficient knowledge of language, sufficient knowledge of the
world, and a given topic. At that time, readers will be able to choose their own

Trung tâm Học liệu ĐH Cần Thơ@Tài liệu học tập và nghiên cứu
suitable strategies so as to understand the text. In contrast, Goodman (1996)
introduced that reading tended to be more reader- driven than text-driven.
According to him, top-down processing had an important role in successful
reading.
Considering the nature of reading, it is noticed that there are numbers of factors

affecting reading comprehension. For Sharon, R. G. (2008), comprehension is
affected by reader’s interest in and background knowledge of the topic, strategies
reader employs, and reader’s physical and emotional state and self image.
Moreover, style, layout and organization of the text, difficulty of the vocabulary
used, even the illustrations, charts and diagrams also have effect on reading
comprehension. In addition, Smith (1967) emphasized the importance of prior
knowledge in reading by defining comprehension as “relating new experience to
the already known…”
In one research on reading comprehension, Caver (1997) suggested that
reading comprehension was comprised of fluency, word recognition, accuracy, and

PAGE 4


rate of processing. Also, Stanovich (1986) referred to phonological awareness and
word recognition skills as an important factor of reading comprehension.
2.2. Reading strategies
2.2.1. An overview of learning strategies
Learning strategies are indeed very essential to second language acquisition.
And there were numbers of writers and studies about learning strategies. In
Oxford’s study (1990) cited in William, B. and Kamonpan, B. (2004), learning
strategies were “ specific actions taken by the learner to make learning easier,
faster, more enjoyable, more self-directed, more effective and more transferable to
new situations”.
“Learning strategies are steps taken by students to enhance their own learning
(Rebecca, L. O., 1990).” It was really helpful for students because they were
means for active, self-directed, involvement in order to increase communication
competence. Choosing appropriate language learning strategies will enhance
students’ proficiency and self-confidence.
In order to understand more clearly about the term strategy, we will have a

Trung tâm
Học liệu ĐH Cần Thơ@Tài liệu học tập và nghiên cứu
look at this term in Greek “strategia”. Strategia means generalship or the art of

war. Specifically, strategy was referred to as the “optimal management of troops,
ships or aircraft in a planned campaign” (Rebecca, L. O., 1990). A related word of
strategies were tactics which were called tools to achieve the success of strategies.
These two terms had some common features: planning, competition, conscious
manipulation and movement towards a goal. In the field of education, learning
strategies were once employed by the learners to help the acquisition, storage,
retrieval, and use of information.
In addition, the term strategies was once used interchangeably with tactics
until Schmeck (1988) cited in Lawrence (2003) distinguished these two terms in
the field of education. Schemeck pointed out that “the term tactics refer to the
specific activities of the learners and the word strategy refers to their more general
plan or approach” (p. 171). Therefore, strategies were considered to be at high
level of learning tactics. And each student would choose his or her own strategies.
The learning outcome would depend on this choice.

PAGE 5


2.2.2. Reading strategies
It is important to have a distinction between reading skills and reading
strategies because there is some confusion between these two terms. Skills are
referred to be automatic internalized reading abilities in order for students to
facilitate reading comprehension (Andre, A. R., Tracy, F. and Hyeran, C. (2006)).
In contrast, strategies are considered to be conscious techniques and tactics
deliberately used by a reader to achieve successful reading comprehension such as
the use of a dictionary, the underlying of key words, or the skimming and scanning

of certain sections.
There is still debate about reading strategies. Some researchers say that the
term “strategy” is deliberate and conscious behavior, but some refer to it as
unconscious behavior. According to Cohen (1986) and Pritchard (1990) cited in
Yu-Fen, Y. (2006), the term strategy is considered to be conscious action. On the
contrary, for Barnett (1998, as cited in Yu-Fen, Y., 2006), this term refers to both
conscious and unconscious behavior. Similarly, reading strategy is defined as “a
physical or mental used consciously or unconsciously with the intention of
Trung
tâm Học liệu ĐH Cần Thơ@Tài liệu học tập và nghiên cứu
facilitating text comprehension and/ or learning” (Davies 1995, p 50 cited in YuFen, Y. (2006). Moreover, Presley and Affberbach (1995, as cited in Lawrence et
al 2008), defined reading strategies as “readers’ deliberate and effortful mental or
physical problem-solving moves in approaching a text for comprehension”.
Because there are varieties of definitions of reading comprehension, different
categorizations of strategy types are also recommended. According to Block
(1986, as cited in Yu-Fen, Y., 2006), reading strategies are divided into two main
groups: general strategies and local strategies. General strategies highlight highlevel reading comprehension, such as inference and monitoring. On the other
hand, local strategies include basic linguistic knowledge, such as the meaning of a
vocabulary and the structure of a sentence. Similar to Block’s ideas, Ellen (1986)
divides reading strategies into two main categories: general and local strategies.
General strategies included anticipating content, recognizing text structure,
integrating information, questioning information in the text, interpreting the text,
using general knowledge and associations, commenting on behavior or process,

PAGE 6


monitoring comprehension, correcting behavior and reacting to the text. In
addition, he added some smaller strategies in local strategies: paraphrasing,
rereading, questioning meaning of a clause or sentence, questioning meaning of a

word, and solving vocabulary problem.
In one study of Sepideh, F. and Nasrin, S. (2007), 24 strategies used by Iranian
students were introduced. And these strategies were classified into three main
strategies: cognitive, meta-cognitive, and socio-affective strategies. According to
them, meta-cognition strategies were defined to be “higher order executive skills
that may entail planning for, monitoring or evaluating the success of learning
activities…cognitive strategies operate directly on incoming information,
manipulating it in ways that enhance learning” (O’Malley and Chamot, 1990). This
category introduced some smaller strategies: selective and directed attention,
planning, monitoring and evaluating. In addition, cognitive strategies relate to
“interacting with materials to be learned, manipulating the material mentally or
physically or applying a specific technique to a learning task” (O’Malley and
Chamot (1990) cited in Sepideh, F. and Nasrin, S. (2007)). In addition, cognitive
Trung
tâm Học liệu ĐH Cần Thơ@Tài liệu học tập và nghiên cứu
strategy was defined by Prokop (1989) cited in Sepideh, F. and Nasrin, S. (2007),

to be related to the “task at hand and the manner in which linguistic information is
processed”. This category consists of some smaller strategies including rehearsing,
organizing, inferring, summarizing, deducing, imaging, transferring or inducing
and elaborating. The last category is socio-affective strategies. They include
interacting with other person to help learning or using affective control to enhance
a learning task. There are some smaller strategies such as cooperation, questions
for classification, and self-task.
Moreover, Aek (2003) recommended two kinds of reading strategies:
cognitive and meta-cognitive strategies. And in cognitive strategies, there were
retrieval and comprehending strategies, in meta-cognitive strategies, there were
planning and monitoring strategies. In his study, there are some following
strategies:
clarifying the purpose of reading

identifying the important aspects of a message

PAGE 7


monitoring ongoing activities to determine whether comprehension is occurring;
engaging in self-questioning to determine whether goals are being achieved; and
taking corrective actions where failures in comprehension are detected

Furthermore, cognitive strategies in his study comprise of making prediction,
translating, summarizing, linking with prior knowledge, or experience, applying
grammar rules and guessing meaning from contexts.
In one of many studies of Sharon, V., Janette, K. and Diane, P. B., collaborative
strategic reading was mentioned. These four mentioned strategies are preview
strategy, the click and clunk strategy, get the gist strategy and wrap-up strategy.
First, preview strategy plays an important role in reading because it provides
opportunities for students to increase interest about the text they will read by
predicting and raising questions about the text basing on their related background
knowledge. While preview strategy is applied prior to reading, click and clunk is
used in during reading. Click strategy assists students in extending the information
which they know something about in the text. On the other hand, clunk strategy is
helpful when students do not understand some words or concepts and they need to

Trung
Họcunderstanding
liệu ĐH Cần
Thơ@Tài
liệu
học tập
vàare

nghiên
havetâm
a deeper
about
them so as to
understand
what
reading cứu
or
learning. And working in group is one of the solutions to solve the clunk. Also, in
during reading, get the gist strategy is also implemented. This strategy aims to help
students identify the most important information about what they have just read, or
main ideas. In order to do this, students rephrase the key idea using their own
words, but no more than ten words. After students have read the entire text, they
use wrap-up strategy as a tool to find out the most critical ideas about the entire
passage in order to assist with understanding and remember what students have
read. The gist strategy is carried out after every two paragraphs while wrap-up is
practiced at the end of the material.
Goodman et al (2004 recommended some strategies of the GRE: looking for
how the text is organized and ignoring details, always looking for choices that
sound consistent with the main idea, using prior knowledge to answer questions.
While, Sullivan et al (2004) identified some strategies for reading
comprehension of the TOEFL: reading the text before reading the questions,
reading the first question of each paragraph for main idea, looking for how the text
PAGE 8


is organized and ignore details, trying to predict where the author’s points are
leading.
In one research of Keiko, H. (1999), cognitive strategies used by readers were

investigated. They are divided into bottom-up processing and top-down
processing. Bottom-up processing which is called data-driven strategies includes
translation into L1, use of dictionary, etc. Meanwhile, top-down processing is
referred to be concept-driven strategies such as prediction, background knowledge,
thinking of author’s idea, contextual guessing, association with image, and finding
clues.
H. Douglas Brown once referred to ten such reading strategies: identifying the
purpose; using graphemic rules and patterns to aid in bottom-up decoding
(especially for beginning level learners); using efficient silent reading techniques
for relatively rapid comprehension (for intermediate to advanced levels); skimming
the text for main ideas; scanning the text for specific information; using semantic
mapping or clustering; guessing when you are not certain; analyzing vocabulary;
distinguishing between literal and implied meanings; capitalizing on discourse
Trung
tâm Học liệu ĐH Cần Thơ@Tài liệu học tập và nghiên cứu
makers to process relationships.

In one of many studies of Andre, A. R. et al (2006), various reading strategies of
the participants are divided into two main categories: macro-level strategies and
micro-level strategies. Macro-level strategies are referred as general approaches
readers use, consciously or subconsciously to complete a test. In macro-level
strategies, there are two smaller strategies: unconditional strategies and conditional
strategies. Micro-level strategies are said to be complex because of the response
process to individual item.
For Janzen and Stoller (1998), reading strategies are grouped into ten groups
including identifying a purpose for reading, previewing, predicting, asking
questions, checking prediction or finding an answer to the questions, connecting
the text to the prior knowledge, summarizing, connecting one part of the text to
another, and recognizing text structure.
Gail, M. T. (2008) divided meta-cognitive strategies into three phrases: before

reading, during reading, and after reading. In before reading, there are some

PAGE 9


strategies: previewing the text, setting the purpose for reading, connecting to prior
knowledge, predicting new learning and developing new vocabulary. During
reading phase consists of some strategies such as monitoring comprehension,
determining main ideas and details, taking notes, visualizing, and developing new
vocabulary while after reading phase includes organizing information, classifying
information, summarizing new learning, making and support inferences, and
drawing and supporting conclusions.
In term of reading process, three stages including before reading, during
reading, and after reading are highlighted. Before reading strategies consist of
predicting, questioning, visualizing, and making connections. D’ Arcangelo (2003)
cited in Nicole, P. and Sarah, S. (2007) argued that it is necessary for students to
activate their background knowledge before beginning reading. Moreover, Robb
(2003), as cited in Nicole, P. and Sarah, S. (2007), added:
The more students know about a topic, the better they’re able to comprehend
new information about it. This is because they can fit new knowledge into
already existing schemas. The more they’ve thought about the ideas that may be

Trung tâm
Thơ@Tài
liệu
học tập
và their
nghiên cứu
presentHọc
in the liệu

text (asĐH
they Cần
do during
connection and
prediction),
the richer
schemas will be (p. 36).

After that, students will apply during reading strategies (self-monitoring,
questioning, visualizing, making connections, inferring, and determining
important/ main idea) to monitor their comprehension. D’Arcangelo (2002), as
cited in Nicole, P. and Sarah, S. (2007), emphasized this:
These strategies help students engage personally and respond to the text,
consolidate

ideas,

and

find

a

reason

for

the

sequence

of

the

information…Reading is a recursive process that requires active engagement. All
of these are tools that allow us to be more actively involved while reading (p.14).

In order for students to interpret, analyze, and deepen understanding, after
students read the text, after reading strategies (determining important/ main idea,
making connections, questioning, inferring, and synthesizing) were important. D’
Arcangelo (2002) cited in Nicole, P. and Sarah, S. (2007), confirmed:
The reading task is not finished when the student has read the pages; it
become even more intense then…After reading, we engage differently with the
author, ideas and our own learning from other sources” (p.14).

PAGE 10


After reading strategies really play an important role for students in solidifying
and remembering ideas presented in the text.
2.3. The effects of reading strategies on reading comprehension:
According to Ellen, B. (1986), poor readers cannot monitor their reading
comprehension as well as good readers. Moreover, good readers tend to be more
aware of the strategies they use than poor readers and they employ these strategies
more flexibly. In addition, good readers know the way to adjust the reading
strategies to the type of text they read to their purpose (Smith, 1967; Strang and
Rogers, 1965).
Furthermore, good readers are able to make prediction between important
information and detail as they read. Besides, they know how to use clues in the text

to predict information (Olson et al., 1984) as cited in Ellen (1986).
One conclusion of Lawrence (2003) shows that successful readers were
considered to be not only “code breakers” but also “meaning breakers”, “text
users”, and “text analyst”. In contrast, unsuccessful readers were said not to be
decode properly.
Trung
tâm Học liệu ĐH Cần Thơ@Tài liệu học tập và nghiên cứu
Besides, high-proficiency pupils employed reading strategies more frequently

than low-proficiency ones. In addition, high proficiency pupils tend to pay
attention to meaning, so they usually predict, summarize, make inference, and
monitor their reading process. On the contrary, low proficiency learners rely too
much on linguistic aspects, for example, decoding.
Basing on some researches on the utilization of the strategies of poor and
good readers, the result shows that good readers use more meta-cognitive
strategies as they read (Dhied-Henia, 2003; Swanson and De La Paz, 1998; Zhang,
2001, as cited in Sepideh, F. and Nasnin, S., 2007).
In one study of Yin and Agnes (2001) cited in Sepideh, F. and Nasnin, S.
(2007), good readers tend to be more aware of meta-cognitive knowledge and use
them more frequently than poor readers.
According to Stanovich (2000), in spite of the necessity of top-down
processing, bottom-up processes seem to have an important role in reading. He
pointed out that skilled readers guessed more accurately than poor readers thanks

PAGE 11


to their accurate and automatic perceptual abilities in word recognition. Hence,
good readers do not necessarily guess as poor readers do.
2. 4. Framework of my study

In the above studies, there are different researchers with various reading
strategies. Because there are different ideas about reading strategies, I choose some
researchers that have some important impacts on my thesis. Relying on these
studies, I set the framework for my study. Among them, there are Sepideh, F. and
Nasrin, S. (2007), Aek (2003), and Gail, M. T. (2008). In their studies, I found two
broad reading strategy categories: cognitive and meta-cognitive strategies that
relate closely to my research. These two types contain two smaller types of
strategies such as retrieval, comprehending, planning, and monitoring.

Trung tâm Học liệu ĐH Cần Thơ@Tài liệu học tập và nghiên cứu

PAGE 12


CHAPTER 3
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
In this chapter, I will present (1) the research design, (2) the participants, (3)
the instruments, and (4) the procedures of the research.

3.1. Research design
This research follows a descriptive design in which the reading strategies
employed by English- major sophomores for reading comprehension are surveyed.
Moreover, the difference among good, average, and poor readers are also
concentrated.
3.2. Participants
90 English-major students course 33 at Can Tho University were randomly
invited to participate in this research. They consist of 73 females and 17 males from
both Bachelor and Education classes. Their ages are not much different, commonly
fromtâm
20 to

21. liệu
I chose
second
year students
aftervà
three
semesters
Trung
Học
ĐHtheCần
Thơ@Tài
liệubecause
học tập
nghiên
cứu
learning in the academic environment they were accustomed to some reading
strategies in reading comprehension.
3.3. Research instruments
3.3.1. Questionnaire on reading strategies
The questionnaire was designed based on the questionnaire of Aek Phakitia
(2003), and many items were adapted to suit my research. In the questionnaire,
there were 31 items that were arranged in random order. A five-point scale (1 never, 2 - sometimes, 3 - often, 4 - usually and 5 - always) was used to investigate
which strategies the students usually employed in reading tests. All those items in
the questionnaire were categorized into 4 factors. They included retrieval,
comprehending, planning and monitoring. These factors were grouped into two
main categories: cognitive and meta-cognitive strategies. Table 3.1 shows the
factors of the questionnaire items.

PAGE 13

Table 3.1: Factors of the questionnaire items

Strategies

Factor

Statements
4 and 12

Factor loading
Spending time on difficult questions

Retrieval
Cognitive

11 and 17

strategies

2 and 7

Using English structures to acquire the text.
Trying to understand the text in spite of limited
vocabularies

Comprehending

3 and 8

Rereading the passage if you do not understand
the text.

5 and 10

Using prior knowledge to acquire the text
better.

6 and 9, 20

Identifying main ideas.

13, 16, 18, Understanding the reading tasks and questions
21, and 26.

clearly.

14, 15 and Determining the plan for doing the test.
Planning

27

19 and 23
Selecting the relevant information to answer the
Trung tâm Học liệu ĐH Cần
Thơ@Tài
liệu học tập và nghiên cứu
questions.
Meta-cognitive

24 and 28

strategies

Checking the performance as well as the
progress while doing the test.

1 and 29

Correcting

mistake

immediately

when

identifying them.
Monitoring

22 and 31

Selecting suitable strategies before solving them

25 and 30

Being aware of the progress to finish the test on
time.

Furthermore, I added one open question for students to complete in order to find

out some more strategies students employed in their reading tests.
3.3.2. Test on reading comprehension
The test included 10 multiple choice items from Toefl Reading Flash (Mikada
B. (2002). With the results of the test, students were classified according to the
academic grading of Vietnam in table 3.2.

PAGE 14


Table 3.2: Academic grading of Vietnam

Qualification

Excellent

Fair

Average

Poor

Grade

8.0 – 10

6.5 – 7.99

5.0 – 6.49

0 – 4.99

In my opinion, there are not many differences in the groups of fair and average
readers (the grade is from 5.0 to 7.99), so I decided to group them into average
reader group. The classification of students basing on their test results is shown in
table 3.3.
Table 3.3: The division of good, average and poor readers

Qualifications
Good
Average
Poor

Grade
Higher or equal to 8
Higher or equal to 5
and less than 8
Less than 5

3.4. Procedures

Trung tâm Học liệu ĐH Cần Thơ@Tài liệu học tập và nghiên cứu
First, I delivered the questionnaire to thirty students to check my reliability with

SPSS program. Later, the reliability is rather high, so I kept the questionnaire as my
first plan.
3.4.1. Administering the test
In order to categorize students into groups of good, average, and poor, I
delivered a test to 90 students both in Education and Bachelor classes of the English
Department to do in the second week of April. They had about 15 minutes to
complete the ten-item reading test.

3.4.2. Administering the questionnaire
The questionnaire was administered after that. Before the students started, I gave
them a clear instruction to make sure they understood what to do. After checking, I
had them begin doing their job in 10 minutes. Finally, ninety questionnaires were
fully collected.

PAGE 15


CHAPTER 4
RESULTS
In this section, I will report the results of the data collected from the
questionnaire and the test. The results will specify (1) the use of reading
strategies (cognitive and meta-cognitive strategies) of the second-year English
majors and (2) the differences in reading strategy use among good, average, and
poor readers.

4.1. Students’ use of reading strategies
To know the students’ use of reading strategies, the questionnaire of 31 items
was used. These items cover the two main ideas: cognitive and meta-cognitive
strategies. The students marked their responses to each item on a five-point scale:
from 1 (never) to 5 (always).
With the aim of investigating the strategies (cognitive and meta-cognitive
strategies), I delivered the questionnaire. I collected the questionnaires and analyzed

Trung
tâm Học liệu ĐH Cần Thơ@Tài liệu học tập và nghiên cứu
with the SPSS program. First, I ran the Scale Test to test the reliability of the
questionnaires. The result of the scale was shown in table 4.1.
Table 4.1: Reliability Coefficient of the questionnaire

Number of

Cronbach’s

items

Alpha

31

.849

As can be seen from the table, the reliability coefficient of the questionnaire is
relatively high (α = .849).
Since the items in the questionnaire were grouped into two categories (cognitive
and meta-cognitive strategies), I ran the Descriptive Statistics Test to check for the
mean score, the minimum, and maximum. The results of the descriptive statistics
are shown in table 4.2.

PAGE 16


Table 4.2: Descriptive statistics of the reading strategies

Number Minimum Maximum
of cases (Min.)
(Max.)
(N)
90

1.61
4.09

Mean
(M)
3.37

Through table 4.2, we could see that the total mean score of the reading
strategies is above the average level in the scale of 5 levels (M = 3.37). This means
that the students use these strategies rather often in their reading test. Figure 4.1
demonstrates the mean score of students’ use of reading strategies.

4.5

4

4
3.37

Trung tâm Học3.5liệu ĐH
3 Cần Thơ@Tài liệu học tập và nghiên cứu
Scale

3
2.5
Mean score
2
1.5
1
0.5

0
Often

Mean

Usually

Figure 4.1: The total mean of the questionnaire factors

The mean score of the reading strategies students employ was rather high
(between the “often” and “usually” level).
As I mentioned in the methodology, the reading strategies were divided into
two main categories: cognitive and meta-cognitive strategies. In the following
section, I will present the mean scores of these ones in order to see how often each

PAGE 17


of these strategies was used. Table 4.3 presents the statistics of the mean score of
each type.

Table 4.3: The mean scores of cognitive and meta-cognitive strategies

Types of

N

Minimum Maximum

Mean

strategies
Cognitive

90

1.61

3.94

3.2

Meta-cognitive

90

2.95

4.09

3.4

From the table, the mean score of cognitive strategies is M = 3.2, and that of
meta-cognitive strategies is M = 3.4. Looking at these means, we can see that metacognitive strategies were used more often than cognitive strategies. Figure 4.2
shows the mean scores of these two kinds of strategies in the scale of 5 levels.

Scale

Trung tâm Học liệu ĐH Cần Thơ@Tài liệu học tập và nghiên cứu
3.45

3.4
3.35
3.3
3.25
3.2
3.15
3.1

3.4

Cognitive
strategies
3.2

Meta-cognitive
strategies

Types of
strategies

Figure 4.2: The mean scores of learners’ reading strategies

In the above chart, the mean score of meta-cognitive strategies was higher than
that of cognitive strategies.
Also, in the methodology, I mentioned that in the cognitive strategies, there
were two smaller types of strategies such as retrieval and comprehending strategies;
in meta-cognitive strategies, there were two smaller categories such as planning and

PAGE 18

monitoring. To find out the degree of reading strategies students employed, I used
Descriptive StatisticsTest to explore the mean score of these four main factors. Then
table 4.4 presents the scores of these factors.

Table 4.4: The mean scores of retrieval, comprehending, planning, and monitoring strategies

Factors

N

Min.

Max.

Mean

Retrieval

90

1.61

3.4

2.88

Comprehending

90

2.73

3.94

3.36

Planning

90

2.95

3.8

3.44

Monitoring

90

3.24

4.09

3.58

Figure 4.3 shows the differences of the mean scores of the strategies.
4
3.5

3.36

3.44

3.58

Trung tâm Học liệu2.88
ĐH Cần Thơ@Tài liệu học tập và nghiên cứu
3

Retrieval

2.5

Comprehending

2

Planning

1.5

Monitoring

1
0.5
0
Figure 4.3: The mean scores of four factors

In this chart, monitoring (M = 3.58) was used most often. Next was planning
strategies which belong to meta-cognitive strategies. Comprehending strategies
were used less frequent than planning and monitoring strategies. And last, retrieval
strategies (M = 2.88.) were used the least.

PAGE 19