i
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT STUDENTS’ METACOGNITIVE
AWARENESS OF STRATEGIES USED IN READING ACADEMIC
JOURNALS
THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan
Devi Irnasari 112009161
LANGUAGE AND EDUCATION DEPARTMENT
FACULTY OF LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
SATYA WACANA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY
SALATIGA
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ENGLISH DEPARTMENT STUDENTS’ METACOGNITIVE AWARENESS OF
STRATEGIES USED IN READING ACADEMIC JOURNALS
THESIS
Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of
Sarjana Pendidikan
Devi Irnasari 112009161
Approved by:
Anita Kurniawati H. M.Hum Supervisor
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COPYRIGHT STATEMENT
This thesis contains no such material as has been submitted for examination in any course or accepted for the fulfillment of any degree or diploma in any university. To the best of my knowledge and my belief, this contains no material previously published or written by any other person except where due reference is made in the text.
Copyright@ 2013. Devi Irnasari and Anita Kurniawati, M.Hum
All rights reserved. No part of this thesis may be reproduced by any means without the permission of at least one of the copyright owners or the English Department, Faculty of Language and Literature, Satya Wacana University, Salatiga.
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Kind of Work : Undergraduate Thesis
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Approved by:
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ENGLISH DEPARTMENT STUDENTS’ METACOGNITIVE AWARENESS OF
STRATEGIES USED IN READING ACADEMIC JOURNALS
Devi Irnasari 112009161
Abstract
Many university students found reading academic journals for the first time is a difficult task. They were burdened by the complex syntactic structures, unfamiliar vocabulary and unfamiliar discourse. The general aim of this study was to present a picture of the metacognitive awareness of reading strategy used when the students read academic journals. A hundred of students in the middle of their third year were asked to complete the survey of reading strategies (SORS) adapted from Moktari & Sheorey (2002). The overall result of the study showed that the participants were medium users of strategies with problem solving strategies as the most preferable strategy, followed by global and support strategies.
Key words: metacognitive awareness, reading strategies, academic reading, academic journal.
INTRODUCTION
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years studying with the help of teacher‟s explanation in class, it was very stressful to
complete this task. Hong-Nam & Leavell (2011) noted that shifting from teacher centered study to be independent learners is a difficult skill for students. In addition, the assignment was to make a ten-page-long argumentative academic essay which required me to have enough understanding about the topic to enable me to think critically because I had to write an argumentative essay. This condition frustrated me in completing the task.
Apparently, the difficulties I faced when reading academic journal articles for the first time were also experienced by many of my friends. In other part of the world, it is also reported that this phenomenon happened. Fujimoto, Hagel, Turner, Kattiyapornpong, and Zutshi (2011) found that university students in Australia find difficulties when reading scholarship journal to make an academic essay for the first time. They also found that international students whose English was not their L1 got doubled difficulties because of the incompatible English proficiency of the students with the reading texts. Berman & Cheng (n.d) have investigated this problem in English Academic Purposes (EAP) survey that confirmed a belief about non-native English inadequacy in language skills. In Japanese situation, Hijikata, Nakatani, and Shimuzu (2013) also found that Japanese readers got difficulties in understanding English academic journals because they have not been familiar with its discourse.
Researchers identified this situation from several different points of view. Fujimoto et al (2013) argue that this problem occurred because teacher often regard the „discipline
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blame on the students‟ proficiency. Bean (n.d), a writing professor in Seattle University also
supported this argument; he said that university students nowadays are poor readers because they are not able to deal with college books, bewildered by the bizarre of the references and the unfamiliarity of the words. Moreover, the difficulty is increased when they lack of background knowledge toward specific topic they chose. Cromley (n.d), a professor of psychology wrote that readers can be on the level of frustration when they lack of background knowledge. Hong-Nam & Leavell (2011) categorize students who face all of these problems as „striving readers‟, while Shafie & Nayan (2011) called them, „struggling readers‟ which all refer to the students who lack and are unable to read academic texts. These
are the terms that are used by some researchers which refer to the university students who struggling reading academic text. Despite the fact that many researchers criticize the students‟ proficiency, Easton (2011) identified that the problems with the academic text read
by students in the University level as it has high complexity in the vocabulary use and employ remarkable technique in the writing.
Studying all the problems students face when reading scholarly journals: the lack of exposures toward academic journals before the assignment given, teachers‟ assumption and treatment toward students‟ literacy, incompatibility between students‟ proficiency with the
reading materials, and students‟ lack of background knowledge about the topic were resulted
in frustrating situation in completing the task because they hindered from reading comprehension. Meanwhile, students need to understand the academic texts well. The writing center of University of North Carrolina site stated that writing an argumentative essay, students have to make interpretations of the readings and have a stand point besides provide evidences (“Argument”, 2012). It is also noted there that critical reading plays an important
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Knot (n.d) wrote that in critical reading, reader has to construct judgment about texts‟ arguments. Whereas, setting-up judgments, comprehension must be achieved. Paris & Myers (1981) reported that students could not understand the texts they read if they have no ability in checking and managing their reading comprehension. However, this problem can be solved by reading strategies. Some researchers claimed that the readers who are trained to use strategies when reading performed significantly better than the readers who did not (Caverly, Nicholson, Redcliffe, 2004). Other researchers also have observed that strategies use enhance readers‟ reading maturity and literacy skill (Hong-Nam & Leavell, 2011; Kamran & Saeedeh,
2013).
Regarding to the need of strategies to help struggling readers understand the text, many reading researchers and experts believe that strategies instruction should be done in class (Hamdan, 2010; Anderson, 2002). To help students develop their reading strategies, identifying what strategies already used by the students can be the first step (Ozek & Civelek, 2006; Zhang, 2001; Mokhtari & Reichard, 2002). Moreover, Hijikata et al (2009) reaffirmed that the study about the series of actions taken during reading academic journals should be done separately from reading in general. Negretti & Kuteeva (2011 as cited in Hijikata et al., 2013) noted in their study that upgrading metacognitive skills will help to improve readers‟ ability to recognize and make use of the features of genre of a text properly.
Many studies have done to examine the strategies used by students in reading. Some researchers suggested that strategy instructions help students comprehend academic text (Easton, 2011; Hong-Nam & Leavel, 2011). Some also found that there is a relationship between strategy use and reading achievement (Kamran & Saeedeh, 2013; Ilustre, 2011). The others examined students‟ metacognitive awareness in reading academic material in order to
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Fotovatian & Shokrpour, 2007; Gyasi, Safdarian, Farsani, , 2011; Ozek & Civelek, 2006) and metacognitive awareness of reading strategies in online reading (Anderson, 2003; Amer, Barwani, Ibrahim, 2010; Ramli, Darus, Bakar, 2011). These researches confirmed the need of strategies in reading in various contexts including in the context of university level with academic texts.
Based on the notion that metacognitive awareness of strategies used in reading helps to comprehend the texts and solve the problems faced by students in reading academic journals, a research was done. The research was to answer the question: what are the types and the frequency of strategies used by students when engaging with academic journal for the first time? This study attempted to discover the variety and frequency of reading strategies employed by English Department students who were assigned to read academic journal excessively for the first time. Taking English Department of Satya Wacana Christian University, this research hopefully shed a light theoretically toward the understanding of reading strategies used by English Department students when reading academic journals for the first time, and practicality in designing teaching methods, activities, and instructions in order that reading academic journal difficulties can be decreased when they were given a difficult assignment such as to compose a ten-page long academic argumentative essay with the use of at least ten references. Mokhtari & Reichard (2002) believe, such a research help to provide teachers with functional offers in giving struggle readers aids to develop their awareness of reading strategies.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Definition of reading
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interactive, strategic, flexible, evaluative, learning and linguistic process (Grabe, 2009, p.14-15). While Goodman (1998, p.12) describe reading as a „psycholinguistic‟ process initiated
by basic linguistic symbol which created by the authors and interpreted by the reader. Despite its complexity process, actually reading is a usual activity for adult. However, reading in L2 is different from reading in L1, Grabe (2009, p. 129) wrote “L2 reading is an ability that
combines L2 and L1 reading resources into a dual-language processing system.” Generally, university students are literate enough in their L1. Especially for English major students, English text is their daily tasks. However, reading international scholarly journals for the first time is not an easy job, especially completing a reading task to write an argumentative academic essay.
Reading academic text
To compose argumentative academic essays, students have to do an “active, complex
process of making meaning in which a reader draws information from several sources and concurrently construct a representation of a texts‟ message” (McLoughlin, 1995, p.29 as
quoted in Fujimoto et al., 2011, p.1). For a beginner reader of international scholarly journals, this assignment is inevitably tough enough.
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meaning all through the process or in other words, the readers have to be able to find the shortest path to meaning and use strategies, to use the right clues, and to use background knowledge and also linguistic capability (Goodman, 1998, p. 12).
Regardless of the need to be effective and efficient in reading, Fujimoto et al (2011) found that the students who is doing this kind of assignment for the first time faced „various literacy challenges‟ such as: the maturity of universal „tertiary literacy‟ (Moloney, 2004;
McLoughlin, 1995 as cited in Fujimoto et al., 2011), or „academic literacy‟ (Mateos et al.,
2007 as cited in Fujimoto et al, 2011), familiarity with specific academic discourse (Alexander et al., 2009; Street, 2004 as cited in Fujimoto et al., 2011) and growth of expert literacy (Pinder, 2007 as cited in Fujimoto et al., 2011). All of these challenges are the lacks of students‟ knowledge or literacy such as their incompatible proficiency to read scholarship
journals and unfamiliarity with this type of text.
The thing that makes academic journals difficult to read is because this kind of texts is different from texts for general purposes. Texts which are used for reading in academic purposes (EAP) have particular features that give difficulties for students to understand it, for example: it is written with the assumption that the readers have background knowledge of it, and it needs an understanding about specific features of language style (Hijikata et al., 2013). Many researchers believe that reading academic English is hard for EFL and ESL (Hijikata et al., 2013; Wasilawski, 2009), notably when they have not been familiar with its discourse and have to read it for the first time for a difficult assignment such as compose academic essay (Fujimoto et al., 2011). Tercanlioglu (2004) also confirmed that ESL students have high anxiety and difficulty in reading academic text.
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seven to fifteen years for most learners who are immersed in the target language to acquire academic language. He added that the duration depends on several factors, such as: their level of literacy in their first language, the education experiences, and the amount of contact to complex language the learners ever had (Cummin, as cited in Easton, 2011). Whereas reading in university level, extensive and effective reading of academic texts is vital, and students need to have firm proficiency to be successful (Carrell, 1998, p.1). Despite readers‟ proficiency, the readings itself indeed have several characteristic that make them hard to be read. Cohen, Glasman, Rosenbaum-Cohen, Ferrara, and Fine (1998, p.153-154) identified the characteristics of academic texts in a particular subject / English for special purposes as: it contain „heavy noun phrase subject or object‟, „syntactic marker cohesion‟, and vocabulary in
technical text. They added that even students who master the technical term can be very frustrated reading this text.
To add students‟ difficulties in reading, they face another challenging task for they have to understand the academic texts to the level of comprehension in which they can justify the ideas made by scholar to be able to develop argumentative essay. In fact, Karbarlei (2010) claimed that, in reading readers are supposed to understand its implied ideas besides the direct meaning. Nevertheless, for EFL and ESL readers who struggle in decoding academic text, understanding the implied ideas must be difficult. Whereas, Anderson (1999, p.3) stated that fluency in reading include both decoding and interpretation. Yet complex syntactic structures, unfamiliar terms and unfamiliar discourse hindered EFL and ESL readers to comprehend scholar journals.
Strategies to Help Reading Comprehension
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reading purpose, reading strategies, and the text itself. Grabe (2009, p.195) warned that to build reading comprehension readers need: reading strategies and its integration into the higher level processing, syntactic knowledge, vocabulary knowledge, and discourse knowledge. Studying Grabe‟s statement, strategies seem to become the only aid when the
curriculum does not allow students to know the discourse of the academic journal earlier and the students‟ proficiency have not met the need of academic articles. Cohen et al (1998,
p.165) also endorses this view; he does not deny that strategies help readers obtain meaning from academic text.
Strategies are illustrated by Chamot et al (1999, p.2) as „procedures or techniques‟ used by learners in order to help them complete a specific language task. Adding more description, Anderson (2002) asserts that strategies are „conscious actions‟, which differentiate it with skill which is unconscious (Anderson, 2009, p.15-16 as cited in Grabe, 2009, p. 221). In other words, learners who are trained and get used to use strategies will be skilled in a particular area of learning because they could overcome the problems. Grabe reaffirmed, for beginner readers, even decoding text is utilized with intentional problem solving process. He added, after becoming fluent readers, this basic language processing becomes less necessary (Grabe, 2009, p.222).
There is a belief that the difficulties in reading are caused by readers‟ low
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Many researchers believe that strategies help readers in comprehending text. Researchers who conducted observation on comprehension strategies between good and poor students in primary school in reading found that good students use more strategies more than poor students (Paris & Myers, 1981; Chamot & El-Dinary., n.d). They found that good readers use more effective strategies than poor readers. Even though their study was done to young students, Rao, Gu, Zhang, Hu (2005) noted that reading strategy use is „a stable phenomenon‟. Thus it also can be generalized to the context of adult reading because the
same finding also was found in other study with adult participants. In the studies of adult students Phakiti (2003), Kamran & Saeedeh (2013), and Carverly et al (2004) revealed the positive correlation between the use of strategies and reading comprehension.
In reading, strategies should compensate with texts‟ difficulty and readers‟ aims
(Anderson, 1999, p.52). Oxford (1990, as cited in Anderson, 2002) suggested six categories of strategies in language learning: cognitive, metacognitive, mnemonic or memory, compensatory, affective, and social strategies. Conversely, there are just two kinds of strategies that become popular discussion in helping reading process: cognitive and metacognitive strategies. Grabe (2009, p.233) identified strategies that are associated with cognitive strategies are guessing, noting, recognizing transition phrase, skipping words, identifying a known part, forming a question, and identifying the main idea. While metacognition is defined as the understanding and monitor over cognitive process (Grabe, 2009, p. 222)
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has done by Rao, Gu, Zhang, & Hu in primary school context. Using think aloud protocol, it was found that high proficient students use more deep-level processing strategies (e.g guessing, questioning, etc), and low skilled learners use more surface-level processing (e.g rereading, paraphrasin, etc) (Rao et al., 2005). Meanwhile, Chamot and El-Dinary in a study of elementary school students revealed that successful readers and unsuccessful readers use the same strategies, but different in the frequency use of strategies type. Successful students use more background knowledge – related strategies, while unsuccessful students use more decoding – related strategies (Chamot & El-Dinary, n.d). These studies revealed that there are differences in strategies used between skilled and unskilled readers which imply suggestions to teacher to encourage learners to use more strategies used by successful readers.
Other studies revealed the role of cognitive and metacognitive strategies in reading. A study of EFL university students by Fotovation & Shokrpour (2007) revealed that high proficient readers use more metacognitive strategies when reading text than low proficient readers. While Phakiti (2003) study reported metacognitive strategies have positive correlation with reading achievement and high proficient showed high use of these strategies than the medium and low proficient learners. More, in the study of L1 and ESL readers in United Kingdom, Tercanlioglu (2004) found that native speakers use more metacognitive strategies than ESL students who prefer support strategies. These studies have shown the importance of metacognitive strategies of high proficient readers during reading. Thus, promoting and teaching metacognitive strategies toward students during reading text, especially English text is necessary.
Metacognitive awareness and reading comprehension
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if they are interchangeably. Following Grabe (2009, p.223) who decided that the term metacognitive awareness is better to refers to the knowledge and the use of strategies rather than metacognitive strategies, the writer decide to use metacognitive awareness as the term used in this paper in the later discussion. Firstly, we will discuss the initial use of this term to give a look that the term chosen is better used.
Even though metacognition defined as simply „thinking about thinking‟ with the
second „thinking‟ refers to cognition (Anderson, 1999, p. 82 Anderson, 2002), actually there
was more explanation about this. Flavell, the preliminary user of this term explained, metacognition or „a model of cognitive monitoring‟ comprises of „metacognitive knowledge‟
and „metacognitive experience‟. He referred metacognitive knowledge to the knowledge
about aspects or actions that affects the cognitive tracks which were divided into three types: person, task, and strategies. Referring to the strategy variable, he wrote that there is a remarkable awareness that can be obtained related to the kind of strategies which possibly effective to achieve goals in the cognitive executes (Flavell, 1979). Pierce (2003) added that the metacognitive capability involved three types of knowledge: declarative (accurate information established by the readers), technical (the understanding about the way something is done), and provisional (the understanding of when, why and in what circumstance certain strategy employed) which all concern with learning strategies.
To make it clearer, Livingston (1997) suggested the description of metacognition process as “higher order thinking which involves active control over the cognitive processes engaged in learning.” Several reading experts described the nature of metacognitive in similar
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The term metacognitive awareness is common in the discussion of reading activity. Baker & Brown (1984, as cited in Li, 2010) referred metacognitive awareness as “knowledge about ourselves, the task we face, and the strategies we employ”. For example, if students
think that they would forget an important theory if they do not take notes of what is considered as important parts, then they will write it down. Reading academic text in second language, students must face considerably many challenges to comprehend it. With all the unfamiliar vocabulary, topic, discourse, terms, and syntactic structure, more efforts must be taken into account in reading academic text. Grabe (2009, p.223) acknowledge, everything being put on the text adds the amount of metacognitive awareness needed to comprehend the text.
Many researchers believe that metacognition play important role in reading. Chamot and his partners wrote that it is good in helping managing strategies. Regarding to the need to read effectively when reading academic writing, they asserted that this process shows practice of „effective reader‟ in working throughout many difficult language assessment
(Chamot et al., 1999, p.11). Supporting the previous statement, Anderson (2002) asserted “learners who are metacognitively aware know what to do when they don‟t know what to do;
that is they have strategies to find out or figure out what they need to do”. In fact, that many researchers have examined university students‟ metacognitive awareness of reading strategy
in academic reading has shown its importance in learning process.
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2011). Other researchers use questionnaire to examine the use of strategy of undergraduate students when reading academic text (Alhaqbani & Riazi, 2011; Karbarlei, 2010; Li, 2010; Kamran & Saeedeh, 2013). These studies revealed that students use problem solving strategies as the most preference strategies among global and support strategies.
Mokhtari and Reichard divided metacognitive awareness of reading strategies into three: global strategies, problem solving strategies, and support strategies. Global strategies are the on purpose, deliberate techniques by that employ to manage their reading. While problem solving strategies are localized acts that employed by readers when problem appear during working with the texts. And support strategies are strategies to raise comprehension with the use of tools like dictionaries and others (Mokhtari, & Reichard, 2002, p.4).
In the study comparing ESL and EFL use of strategies when reading academic text, Karbarlei found that ESL use more strategies than EFL. The study may show the more proficient language learners use more strategies than less proficient language learners, following the logic that ESL is more proficient than EFL (Karbarlei, 2010). While in the discussion of study preferences, it was found native English speakers employ that global strategies more than problem solving and support strategies (Hong-Nam & Leavell, 2011). Different with the previous study, some studies in ESL and EFL context revealed that problem solving rate as the highest strategies among the three categories (Ilustre, 2011; Zhang & Wu, 2009; Ghyasi et al., 2011, Mokhtari & Alsheikh, 2011). Those two kinds of finding seemingly made a distinction between native and nonnative speaker use of strategies as well as EFL and ESL.
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with reading comprehension. However, another study by Zhang & Wu (2009) contend the previous study mentioned, they found that global reading strategies correlated with students with high achievement. While Kamran & Saeedeh (2013) advocated the debate and asserted that both Global and Problem solving strategies are correlated positively with the comprehension beside support strategies. In fact, Mokhtari & Reichard (2002) have predicted that high skillful readers use more global and problem solving strategies than less proficient readers.
Having studied the framework of strategies in reading and reading academic journals nature, I have done a study to examine students‟ metacognitive awareness of reading
strategies when reading academic journals.
METHODOLOGY
Regarding the framework written above about the EFL and ESL readers who are struggling when reading international scholarly journal articles for the first time, and the necessity of strategies used to overcome their problems, this research was designed to examine the metacognitive awareness of strategies used by university students who were majoring in English.
Context of the Study
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development of strategy instructions, teaching techniques, or activities. It is very demanding that the students have enough metacognitive awareness in using strategies in academic writing class, for they will read more academic journals in other course, especially in proposal and thesis-making, they need to read a great amount of academic research journals. Thus, a good skill in reading is needed to pass the courses successfully.
Participants
The participants were English Language Education Department students of Satya Wacana Christian University. The participants were chosen based on the sample of convenient, a sample that was chosen according to the researchers‟ convenience (Ross,
2005). It was decided because it was accessible for the writer to do it.
The participants of this research were a hundred English Language Education Department students who were taking academic writing course in the first semester in the period of 2010/2013. According to English Department of SWCU website, academic writing is a bring-in academic discourse course. In this course participants had to choose a topic, build up a thesis statement, construct outline and find relevant references to write a library research based essay (Required Course, 2010).
I chose these participants as in this course they engage with a number of English written international scholarly journals articles for the first time for the whole semester to compose a ten-page long essay. I assumed that they have experienced trials and errors use of strategies in their attempts to comprehend the task-related texts before they finally found the best ways they think fit most. Relating this detail with my study, I want to give a picture of students‟ use of reading strategies so that teachers could develop activities or strategies
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Data Collection Tool
The data was collected by a questionnaire adapted from the Survey of Reading Strategies (SORS) by Mokhtari & Sheorey (2002). The reason of choosing this questionnaire was because it was considerated as a suitable and dependable questionnaire which was made to rate the matacognitive awareness of teenage and adult English learners in which English is their second language when reading academic texts such as textbook and academic journal articles by many researchers. A number of researchers have made use of this instrument (Karbarlei, 2010; Ilustre, 2011; Li, 2010; Kamran & Saeedeh, 2013, Wu & Zhang, 2009). Mokhtari and Sheorey (2002) developed it from MARSI (Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies) which was created because the previous questionnaire was applicable for native readers only. Mokhtari and Reichard believe that it is very imperative to investigate students‟ awareness about the cognitive, motivational manner, and the acts the employ in
order to monitor comprehension when reading academic text. Moreover, they suggested this instrument to help students improve understanding about their students‟ needs (Mokhtari &
Reichard, 2002).
Regarding to the context of the study which was actually EFL, this questionnaire can be used with consideration that students in this department are studying English and all the course‟s instructions and activities delivered with English which put them in almost similar
condition with ESL context. Thus, this instrument fit with my context of study.
There are thirty items measuring three categories of reading strategies:
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structure (Mokhtary & Sheorey, 2002). Many of the strategies in this category are pre-reading acts. In the questionnaire this strategy contain of thirteen items.
Problem Solving Strategies (PROB): The act and process reader use when reading the academic texts. It is confined and concentrated on the way they act in solving problems in understanding the texts. The examples of this strategy are: such as alter the reading pace and guessing the unfamiliar words. In the questionnaire this strategy contain of eight items.
Support Strategies (SUP): The fundamental reinforcement to help reader to understand the text with the use of additional tools, for example by using dictionary, take notes, and highlight the text. This strategy is consisting of nine items in the questionnaire.
According to Mokhtari & Reichard (2002) the three categories of strategies above shown a consistent reliability coefficient that determined by Cronbach‟ Alpha. The result of the Global category was .92, problem solving category .79, and support strategy category was .87, and the reliability of overall strategy was .93. The result indicated that this questionnaire reliable in identifying students‟ metacognitive strategies‟ awareness. A five point Likert scale
following each item indicates the frequency of strategy use ranging from 1 (Never do) to 5 (Always do). The three categories also arranged randomly in order to confuse students (Mokhtari & Sheorey, 2002).
Data Collection Procedure
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several teachers from the academic writing classes; the researcher could spread the questionnaire directly to the participants one by one.
Data Analysis Procedure
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DATA ANALYSIS AND FINDING
Strategies preference shows that participant were moderately high proficient readers
Figure 1. Overall mean of reading strategies
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students, Ilustre (2011) with Philippine university students, Mokhtari & Alseikh (2011) with ESL readers whose native language were Arabic, Amer, Barwani, & Ibrahim (2010) in reading online situation of EFL university students, and Monos (n.d) with Hungarian EFL university students. At least five of the researches mentioned were in the same context with this study. Their studies were in the university context of EFL & ESL learners when reading academic text. Thus, we can infer that these kinds of findings were more likely occur in this context.
It is also revealed that the finding of the other context of the studies were different with my finding. The data of this study is inconsistent with the finding of Ramli et al (2011) who examine the strategies used by EFL students when reading online articles, and Hong-Nam & Leavell (2011) who examined the use of metacognitive strategies of native English. Their studies proved that global strategies posited as the highest strategies use followed by problem solving and support strategies. Regarding to the preference of global strategies as the highest use strategies in several different contexts of studies, Alhaqbani & Riazi (2012) found that students from Africa (ESL) used more global strategies, while Asian students (EFL) used more problem solving strategies. Their study supports Carrell (1989, as cited in Ilustre, 2011) who said that ESL readers used more Global strategies. These studies might show the difference between native and nonnative readers‟ as well as EFL and ESL readers‟ way of
reading.
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and problem solving strategies than low proficiency group. Their study confirmed Mokhtari & Reichard (2002) prediction that the high proficient group was high users of global and problem solving strategies. That study also showed that there was no difference between ESL and EFL readers.
Others studies also proved this objective. Mokhtari & Alsheikh (2011), Anderson (2003) and Karbarlei (2010) reported that ESL showed the use of problem solving strategies as the highest strategies preferred. Anderson (2003) assumed that the distinction between ESL and EFL lose its ground because of increased English exposures opportunities received by EFL learners by media such as television, radio and internet, and also the accessibility of good learning materials. This argument is seemingly true with regard of easy access of English learning-helper media nowadays which also occurs in the context of my study.
In sum, the findings of other studies showed that more proficient readers used more strategies or had higher metacognitive awareness. Thus, because of the participant of this study were medium users of strategies, then it can be inferred that they have quite high proficiency. Another point that can be highlighted from this study is that the participants may get more advantages especially from problem solving strategies regarded to the high rate of it than from the global and support strategies which rate as medium use.
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Participants demonstrate their understanding of the nature of academic journals in their
strategies use
Figure 2. Global Reading Strategies Subscale
The awareness of monitoring their reading or Global strategy is in the medium scale which means the participants were aware enough of these strategies. The figure two shows the use of global reading strategies which is the evidences for learners monitor and manage in reading by having some planned techniques or pre-reading actions. Rated in the medium used from total thirteen strategies, the data showed that the highest three rates are in high use. Using background knowledge (mean = 3,68) is rated as the highest strategy use. It is good that the participants were aware of the background knowledge activation, background knowledge is regarded as the vital aspect in whichever comprehension premise (Grabe, 2009, p.80). They also show the attempt to be efficient readers, as Goodman (1998) stated that background knowledge activation is one of the aspects to built comprehension and also as successful readers (Chamot & El-Dinary, n.d).
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3,57) and think if the texts being read fit with their reading purpose (mean = 3,57). These three strategies are very imperative and normally happened in the context of this study where the students read the text to write academic essay. Looking at the rates, we know that the participants were aware of the characteristic of reading academic journals for writing academic essay where they had to be efficient in time. They were having purpose in mind before reading, thinking if the text fit their topics, and guessing texts‟ context because they
did not want to read too deeply articles which will not give any significant information for them.
Karbarlei (2010) stated that strategies under Global categories are known well by EFL learners. He added, the implementation of these strategies is the first step to obtain the full comprehension of the texts. Thus by the use of medium global strategies, the participants have shown their initiatives in comprehending academic journals.
The lowest strategies is to use tables, figures, and pictures in the text to increase their understanding (mean = 2,73). The lowest rate of the use of figures in the text in comprehending the text is contradictory with Gyasi et al (2011) study which found that this strategy was preferred by all participants. Moreover, basically authors‟ made the tables,
figures and the other visual explanation being put in the text was aimed to help the reader to easily understand about the things being discussed.
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something closely to the parts that considered as „news‟ for them (Bazerman, 1985, p.11 as
cited in Swales 1990, p.14).
The participants in this study may have the same thought so that this feature did not get so much attention. In addition, their background knowledge about the data analysis of a research had not compatible yet to understand the discussion for they had not taken research method course when they were taking academic writing course. This fact may also influence their strategy choices. Other than that, their difficult task which likely required them to just tell the main idea of an academic journal article, not discuss deeply the data analysis may lead them directly to the conclusion section after read the introduction. Regarding to reading strategies‟ rates and the context of my study, seemingly students were able to choose the best
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Participants’ use of strategies shows their awareness of reading purposes
Figure 3. Problem Solving Strategies Subscale
Figure three presents questions within category problem-solving strategies (PROB). From the total of nine strategies, the data shows the highest three strategies often used by students are: reread when the text become difficult (4,11), read slowly and carefully (4, 01), and pay closer attention to the text (3, 92). The lowest strategy is to stop from time to time and think about what they are reading (3,01). The chart of these strategies shows that participants are aware of their comprehension process and that they are able to take some actions to help them understand the text when the text became difficult. The overall mean of this category is 3,67. This number considered as high rate by looking at the scale with five is the highest rate. The number fell between often and always which means student rely on these strategies quite excessively.
27
preference of strategies use when reading English shows that the participants found English texts more difficult than Arabic texts. Rao et al (2005) believed that the use of strategies closely related to the readers‟ self efficacy. In this study, the participants seem to see the
urgent need to understand the text deep enough to write argumentative academic essay. Thus they employ many problem solving strategies to help them understand the academic journals.
It is different from Ramli‟s et al (2011) study where the participants were examined
their strategies used when reading English online text (not academic text) which employ global strategies more than the others. The less urgent need of deep comprehension toward texts can be a strong factor of strategies preference. Anderson‟s (2003) findings strengthen
this idea. In the study of academic online reading, he found that problem solving strategies was the highest strategies employed. Even though the two studies were in the same context, online reading however has different purposes. Moreover, Ramli et al (2011) also believe that the strategies preference is affected by learners‟ subjectivities and also learning situation.
Academic purposes in reading proved to affect EFL and ESL readers‟ in using strategies.
Adding the more explanation about problem solving preference, Alhaqbani & Riazi (2012) stated that the high use of problem solving strategies might be credited to some factors such as motivation, the major of study, students‟ bilingualism/trilingualism and also the target
language acquisition nature. They also believe that the use of these strategies would affect the slow reading speed because of the problems they face during reading (Alhaqbani & Riazi, 2011).
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Students awareness in using tools to aid comprehension
Figure 4. Support Reading Strategy Subscale
In this category the three highest strategies being used are: underline and circle the information written in the text (mean = 4,01), paraphrase for better understanding (3, 44) and go back and forth to find the coherent ideas in a text (3, 44). The lowest strategy in this category is to read aloud to understand the text more (mean = 2,76). The three highest strategies employed in this category were very important to support participants‟ essays making process. Note taking is a kind of action which likely employed in doing research. While circle and paraphrase are parts of this action. High complex syntax employed in academic journals may be the reason that driven students use paraphrase strategy. The medium use of this strategy seemingly need to be increased regarded to the big frequency of complex syntax occurred.
Reading out loud for better understanding rate as the lowest in this category might cause by their habitual in reading. In Indonesia, it is common that elementary school students are trained to read silently and read aloud is seen as a way of reading that use by poor reader. In Amer‟s et al (2010) study comparing first year fourth year students in the use of reading
29
strategies, reading aloud was the least strategy used by the fourth year students. They inferred, this strategy is likely used by poor reader. However, following the notion that English academic journals are difficult readings, and when comprehension is take into account in writing academic essay task, reading aloud is suggested. As Dhaif (1990) found in his research that EFL learners were gain much higher text comprehension when reading aloud rather than when reading silently.
Zhang & Wu (2009) was not surprised with the least use of Support strategy use. They related the use of it with reading efficiency. For example, it is believed by Afflerbach & Pressley (1995, as cited in Zhang & Wu, 2009) that translating the reading texts into L2 would make their reading slower, although it helps reader to make the meaning of the text clearer. Regarding to the participants‟ task, it is understandable that they did not want to
spend too much energy and time and slow their reading. They argued that the low use of this strategy showed that participants were adaptable with the reading process and task. This finding can be interpret positively that participant knew when and which part to be read carefully and when to find the general ideas. Also they able to recognize which information were relevant and which were not by the highlighted texts. From this information we can infer that students understood that they had to read so many literatures for their essay so they used strategies that do not waste their energy even though actually by reading aloud people were more likely to understand the text better.
Hijikata et al (2013) stated that strategies used by students when reading scholar journals is depend on their competence, background knowledge of the topic, and familiarity. Thus, the high and medium rate of the strategies seemingly depends on those three aspects. The fact that the participants had not been familiar with the topic yet, so they lack of background knowledge and own the proficiency that haven‟t been exposure to academic text
30
used when reading academic texts, participants in this study were aware of it. Regarding to the result the strategies used is still in the moderate level of use shows that strategies used need to be raised. Thus, to raise students‟ awareness of the strategies is considered important.
CONCLUSION
This study measures the English Department students‟ awareness toward the use of
reading strategies when reading academic journal. The finding shows that participants were medium users of strategies and have medium metacognitive awareness in reading. The participant can be called strategic readers for they are aware to use strategies, especially Problem Solving strategies. It can be said that participants are able to choose strategies according to their need and fluency which is showed by the high use of some particular problem solving strategies. The medium use of Global strategies also shows that the participants are aware of the use of pre-reading acts which help reading comprehension and foster effective reading. Moreover, even though support strategies are rated as the least strategies use, the medium use of this category shows that the participants have been able to make use of tools in reading academic journals which help them comprehend the text. The high and medium rate of each strategy prove that the participants able to adapt strategies according to the context, which is reading academic journals
The medium use of the strategies shows the learners‟ experience with the language. Sanders (2004 as cited in Alhaqbani & Riazi, 2011) found in his study that learners who had learning the target language for more than 4 or 5 years used more strategies than the learners whose experience were less than that number. This evidence gives understanding that the third year students who were in the beginning of their third year were having medium awareness of strategies. Teachers‟ guidance in strategies instruction may be able to foster the
31
phase of learning so that when they are given the such a difficult assignment like writing argumentative academic essay, they will be perform better. It sustains by a believe that successful readers employ adaptable range of strategies to help them with reading problem such as unfamiliar terms, syntactic and text‟s structure (Hamdan et al., 2010).
Overall, this study shows the participants‟ positive behavior in reading academic text
with the use of many strategies in medium rate. However, the use of strategies raised to the highest level is also needed. Anderson (2002) stated that the reflection and evaluation of metacognition process can be used to make a particular transformation in the way of learning. Moreover, metacognition is believed to be able to raise motivation in reading (Pierce, 2003). The pedagogical implication of this study is that teacher should give strategy instruction, so that struggling students can be more aware of the strategies needed to overcome their problems. To assist students develop their metacognitive awareness also means help them to be more proficient in English. Furthermore, after taking this course, in the next courses students will face many task that require them to read academic texts, so in this regard teacher should give provisions in the form of strategy knowledge.
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reading instruction given toward striving readers also gave significant impact in metacognitive awareness (Hong-Nam & Leavell, 2011).
This study was using questionnaire which used to gain students self report information about the strategies use when they read academic journals in completing the academic writing task. The single data collection tool definitely made this research not able to show the real use of strategies employ by the students. Students may use more strategies or fewer strategies than they have reported. Triangulation data may need to apply to get the more accurate information by employ other data collection tools such as think aloud protocol which is often used in this kind of discussion, and test students comprehension to know how far students success in employing all the strategies they used.
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Acknowledgement
I am thanking God that I have finally finished my thesis in time. In the beginning, it was seemed so difficult to write a topic related to personal problem in reading. Sometimes I wanted to give up for it was very difficult to get all of the resources I need and I was afraid if I could not make the one that I wanted or the ideal one that have been set on my mind. Thus, I believe that this work will never be done without the help of the people who give contribution in my thesis making. My biggest thanks delivered to my supervisor, Anita Kurniawati, M.Hum whom with her expertise and in the middle of her busy schedule was available for consultations and Prof. Gusti Astika for his teaching and assistance in writing a research paper for the sixth International Seminar held by ED in SWCU so that I had the picture of thesis making.
I also very thankful for the encouragement and prays sent by my beloved family. A lot of thanks goes to my friend of thesis-making-struggle: Damay (2009), and also friends who were very kind in helping me collected the data: Yayan (2008), Diana (2010), Cintya (2010), Dea (2009), Abe (2006), Bangkit (2009) and especially Eren (2010) who was such an Angel for giving me a very big help to collect the data from her friends, Ayu (2007) for all of the suggestions; Dhenok (2008) for peer-reviewing, Yuyun (2009), Zilpa (2009) and friends from SMU period of 2010-2011 for our endless friendship and supports. Finally, my biggest thank-you goes to all of the participants who have helped me fulfilling my questionnaire, I owe them my eternal gratitude and my examiner, Christian Rudianto M.Appling for reading and assess my thesis.
Maybe I hope too much. Maybe I dream too much. But at least I won’t give
up until I’ve tried, and I won’t regret anything.
34
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Appendix
Questionnaire
Dear all friends,
I am conducting a research about Academic Writing students’ reading strategies when reading academic journal to make the academic writing essay. This information will only be used for my study. It will not be disclosed to public, will not affected your grade and will helped me to get the valid data, please answer the questions honestly. Many thanks.
First before you put your answer in the questionnaire, please provide the following information :
1. NIM :
2. How many times have you taken the academic writing course ? [never before / once before (this time is the second time) / twice (this time is the third times)]
3. Have you taken the academic reading class? [yes/ no]
After reading each statement, put thick (v) to the column which applies to you. Note that there are no right or wrong responses to any of the items on this survey.
No Statement
6 I think about whether the content of the text fits my reading purpose.
7 I read slowly and carefully to make sure I understand what I am reading.
8 I review the text first by noting its characteristics like length and organization.
9 I try to get back on track when I lose concentration.
42 remember it.
11 I adjust my reading speed according to what I am reading. 12 When reading, I decide what to read closely and what to
ignore.
13 I use reference materials (e.g. a dictionary) to help me understand what I read.
14 When text becomes difficult, I pay closer attention to what I am reading.
15 I use tables, figures, and pictures in text to increase my understanding.
16 I stop from time to time and think about what I am reading. 17 I use context clues to help me better understand what I am
reading.
21 I critically analyze and evaluate the information presented in the text.
26 I ask myself questions I like to have answered in the text. 27 I check to see if my guesses about the text are right or
