PRESENTATION, ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION OF RESULTS
4.3 ANALYSIS OF STUDENTS’ SURVEY QUESTIONNAIRE
4.3.3 Formulation of new ideas from reading
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Figure 4.6: Whether students consider themselves good readers or not
Figure 4.6 above captures the various answers from the students when they were asked to indicate whether they are good readers or not. As shown above, 59% of the students indicated that they are good readers, with 38% being not sure if they are good readers or not, indicated by ‘maybe’. Only 4% indicated that they are not good readers.
At a university level, the students should not be struggling with reading as they have already gone through 12 years of schooling. This gives an indication that RC is not adequately taught at the basic level.
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what they read, including the use of prior knowledge. This then suggests that students can decode what they read. Below are cases from the students:
“Simple imagine a specific scenario either write it down or just keep it my head, after imagining it definitely brainstorm it to connect it with the story I read or reading”.
“What I'm reading I picture it in real life situation”.
“I think reading sparks your imagination therefore new idea can formulate from reading”.
“I do create meaning from a reading response by imagination”.
“I take everything written from the text that I will be reading and try to use my own knowledge to understand and keep an open mind”.
“I formulate new ideas by brain storming”.
“…I mentioned how reading increases my word bank, which some unleashes and teaches me different methods I can use to paraphrase with at most comprehensibility when given other tasks from different modules”.
“Reading passages always have meanings or ideas sometimes figuratively so I formulate new ideas from my own understanding”.
“I try to predict what will happen in the passage and how things will eventually unfold and conclude”.
“While reading, I am able to have my own perspective on the article/comprehension that I'm reading thus formulating new ideas”.
In response to the question whether they enjoy reading for comprehension, the majority of students (81%) indicated that they enjoy reading for comprehension, while 19% indicated that they did not enjoy reading. Students were then asked to indicate what they specifically enjoyed reading. Figure 4.7 below shows specifically what the students indicated what they enjoy about reading for comprehension.
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Figure 4.7: What students enjoy about reading
The chart above (Figure 4.7) shows that RC enables students to uncover new information, improve their reading and writing skills as well as their vocabulary. The views are presented below.
“I enjoy reading comprehension because I gain meaning from what I read. Reading increases my understanding of the comprehension and at the end it helps become an active reader. Sometimes I read for fun to gain more knowledge”.
“It helps me in understanding things that I didn't know, also help me in my reading skills and vocabulary”.
“It is another way of gaining new knowledge without going the long way, and it improves my reading skills and tackles my understanding”.
“All comprehensions contain certain information based on what is happening in the world so when I read, I know that I would have obtained new information”.
“Because I will have a stronger reading comprehension, and better writing and spelling check”.
“I enjoy reading for comprehension because I get to learn new words that I didn't know and also this increase my vocabulary to be better”.
“Reading for comprehension helps in increasing one's vocabulary and I can also master my reading skills in case I come through a tough word”.
“It allows me to assess my vocabulary and ability to understand what is written, therefore useful in my academics”.
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“It is because I am being exposed on new words. It also helps to increase my vocabulary and get used to reading”.
An analysis of reading comprehension challenges sometimes experienced by students revealed that they faced varied reading comprehension challenges. Lack of concentration and understanding, poor vocabulary and an inability to decode and interpret the passage are themes that emerged from analysing this section of the study. Students also stated that the length of the passage plays a part in their interest to read. These views are highlighted in Table 4.6 below.
Table 4.6: RC challenges experienced by students
Participant Statement
UCP15 “Having to encounter bombastic words and not knowing the meaning”.
UAP2 “How to take out few important ideas from the passage and not knowing or understanding the moral of the passage”.
UCP3 “Understanding the message conveyed in a comprehension when complex information is given, understanding some of words used meaning or to establish figure of speeches”.
UCP7 “I struggle to understand some words that the writer might have used. I take long to understand or figure out the main ideas written in the comprehension”.
UBP7 “Sometimes the passage might hold little words which makes it hard to quickly find answers or understand it better”.
UBP16 “Like if sometimes the comprehension is too long, and you have less time and finding words that may be hard for you to understand the meaning”.
UAP16 “Confusion about the meaning of words and sentences. Inability to connect ideas in a passage and lack of concentration during reading”.
UAP13 “When there is plenty of scientific words or bombastic words used, I lose interest leading me to not understanding the message or
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purpose of the entire comprehension. When there is too much reference or many people introduced for the purpose of proving a fact, I lose focus, the comprehension becomes too formal and does not fully engage with the reader. When the comprehension is too long”.
Figure 4.8: Ability by students to summarise, extract and create meaning, and comprehend reading tasks
Figure 4.8 above shows that 65% of the students indicated that they are able to summarise what they read, 31% indicated that they sometimes summarise and 4%
indicated that they do not summarise what they read at all. To create meaning from the passage, the students must be able to make use of RCCs such as summarising.
One way of improving RC is to teach students the skill of summarising the texts that they read. It is a very important skill encompassing what can be employed by effective students (Khoshsima & Rezaeian Tiyar, 2014: 135). Students that are able to summarise correctly should be able to create meaning from texts. Since some students indicated that they do not summarise what they read, it explains why 44% of them indicated that they are not always able to create meaning from the text, and the other 5% arguing that they do not, at all, create meaning from the text. As scholars have already posited, the use of RCSs can aid reading comprehension.
The above figure also demonstrates that 49% of the students indicated that they are able to comprehend what they read, and the other 49% indicated that they are able to
65% 64%
51% 49%
4% 9% 5% 1%
31% 27%
44% 49%
Do you summarise main
ideas? Do you extract meaning
from a reading passage? Do you create meaning from
a reading passage? Are you able to comprehend reading tasks?
Reading comprehension application
Yes No Sometimes
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understand what the read sometimes. The other 1% of the students indicated that they are unable to understand what they read. These results correlate with research that indicated that some South African students enter higher education with poor RC as such they tend to struggle academically. Many studies conducted at a national and an international level indicate a growing percentage of students that enter university with insufficient reading literacy which then lead students to struggle in achieving the necessary academic requirements of their discipline (Bharuthram, 2017 :50).
Figure 4.9: Use of reading comprehension tools, activation of prior knowledge, and support from lecturers
Reading comprehension application in Figure 4.9 above presents a summary of various questions from the questionnaire. Sixty-nine percent (69%) of the students indicated that they read additional texts to boost their comprehension, with 31%
indicating that they do not read any additional text. Majority of the students, that is 91%, highlighted that they activate prior knowledge when reading to aid their comprehension. The use of prior knowledge when reading has been shown to aid reading comprehension and it is one of the most effective RC strategies. However, it is important that the students activate the correct prior knowledge; otherwise this strategy will not be of any use or efficient to them.
69%
91%
57%
81%
31%
9%
43%
19%
Do you read any additional text to boost your
comprehension?
Do you sometimes activate your prior knowledge when
reading?
Do you sometimes get reading support from your
lecturer?
Do you enjoy reading for comprehension?
Reading comprehension application
Yes No
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Fifty-three percent (53%) of the students indicated that they get reading support from their lecturers, and 47% stated that they did not get any support from their lecturers.
Lecturers indicated that they try to give support to students with reading