| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立中正大學 === 外國文學所 === 97 === The main purpose of this study was to explore the effects of teaching test-taking strategies on senior high school students’ reading comprehension scores, and to investigate how high and low proficiency students differ in their strategies use when comprehending a text written in English as well as performing multiple-choice reading comprehension questions. This study involved two intact classes of 72 second-year students in a vocational senior high school in Chia-yi County. Prior to the treatment, both the experimental and control groups received a pretest of multiple-choice reading comprehension questions. After the pretest, only the experimental group received a 10-period instruction in test-taking strategies. At the completion of the instruction, both groups were again given a posttest of multiple-choice reading comprehension questions. Furthermore, six students from the experimental group, representing high and low proficiency subgroups, were asked to perform retrospective verbal reports. The students’ scores were compared by independent-samples t-test analyses to examine the significant differences between the experimental and control groups. On the other hand, the six students’ retrospective verbal reports were transcribed and used for qualitative analysis to investigate the differences in reading and test-taking strategies use between high and low proficiency students.
The results of statistical analyses indicated that the test-taking strategies instruction had a significant effect on the high proficiency students’ comprehension scores, while the instruction showed no significant effect on the low proficiency students’ comprehension scores. In addition, the results of qualitative analysis revealed three findings: (1) the number and types of reading strategies used by high proficiency students exceeded those used by low proficiency students, (2) low proficiency students’ limited vocabulary knowledge hindered their strategic reading, and (3) high proficiency students utilized test-taking strategies more effectively and successfully than low proficiency students when performing multiple-choice reading comprehension questions. Based upon the findings, it is suggested that teachers implement test-taking strategies instruction in their reading class to promote students’ reading comprehension performance and to increase their ability of independent reading. As for low proficiency students, it is recommended that teachers provide a lot of vocabulary teaching and reinforcement to expand low proficiency students’ vocabulary knowledge so that they can improve their reading comprehension. Finally, suggestions for future research were offered.
|
|---|
