| Summary: | 博士 === 國立高雄師範大學 === 英語學系 === 94 === Web-based learning has been much emphasized in the age of information. Moreover, how to make effective use of metacognitive reading strategies to enhance reading abilities and process information is a big concern. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate the effects of web-based metacognitive reading strategy training and the perceptions by subjects of web-based learning for senior high school students in southern Taiwan. Four reading strategies were selected, based on the selection-organization-integration-metacognition (SOIM) model, to assist students to promote their reading comprehension in a web-based community to train metacognitive reading strategies, including skimming, semantic mapping, summarizing, and self-evaluation. A training platform, an e-reading platform, was developed for this study.
Three hundred students who participated in this study were in the tenth grade in four senior high schools in southern Taiwan – Chien-Chen Senior High School in Kaohsiung City, Fu-Cheng Senior High School in Kaohsiung County, Tainan Girls' Senior High School and Chia-Chi Girls' Senior High School in Tainan. These subjects were divided into two groups – 160 students comprised the experimental group (EG) and 140 students comprised the control group (CG). The EG subjects answered questionnaires, were tested on reading comprehension, and participated in a web-based metacognitive reading strategy training program (WMRSTP), whereas the CG subjects answered the same questionnaires and were tested on reading comprehension but received no such training. The training lasted for ten weeks.
The instruments included tests of reading comprehension, the metacognitive awareness of reading strategy inventory (MARSI), questionnaires before and after training, and the questionnaire on the instructional design and the user-interface design to the e-reading platform.
The main findings of the study are presented as follows:
1. Web-based metacognitive reading strategy training succeeded in increasing EFL students’ metacognitive awareness of reading strategies.
2. Web-based metacognitive reading strategy training was effective in enhancing reading comprehension. The results of the pre-reading and post-reading tests showed that the EG subjects made significant progress than the CG subjects in their reading ability after training.
3. With regard to the training of the four selected metacognitive reading strategies, the EG subjects exhibited positive attitudes towards the four selected metacognitive reading strategies than the CG ones.
4. The EG subjects were appreciative of web-based learning as it was beneficial in promoting thinking, providing alternative instruction, increasing interaction, and enhancing motivation.
5. The EG subjects confirmed the effectiveness of the instructional design and the user-interface design of the e-reading platform. The EG subjects agreed that ease of use and pedagogy-based design increased their desire to use the e-reading platform and also facilitated their learning of the four selected reading strategies.
On the basis of these findings, four pedagogical implications are provided:
1. Teachers should incorporate metacognitive reading strategy training into regular
reading instruction to aid students to become effective readers.
2. Teachers may assist students in developing electronic literacy and taking advantage of modern information technology to become autonomous learners.
3. At all levels of language education, from the teachers to the institutional, active mastery of web-based learning is essential for confronting the imperatives of an information society.
4. English teachers and technology teachers can collaborate with one another to develop adaptive training platforms to facilitate instruction.
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