In the field of English-as-an-additional-language (EAL) reading, numerous studies have investigated EAL learners’ employment of reading strategies, along with its potential relationships with other variables (e.g., language proficiency, major, and cultural background). The majority of existing findings have often failed to account for any internal processes or supplementary information about EAL strategic behaviour in academic reading. This study investigated 26 Chinese EAL graduate students’ reading strategy use across three reading modes and any relationships between EAL reading strategy use and task performance. Data included video recordings of participants’ test performances, a post-task stimulated recall, and a post-task reading perception survey. Results indicated that Chinese EAL graduate readers employed wide varieties of reading strategies, with cognitive strategies and social the most frequently and least frequently identified. Multivariate analysis showed statistically significant differences in strategy use within the cognitive category, indicating that EAL reading strategy use is complex, often employing several individual strategies at any time. Correlational analyses revealed no significant associations between overall strategy use and task performance. E-reading strategy use was positively correlated with task performances, but similar strategy employment on paper revealed dissimilar associations. The main implication of this study is that EAL educators and researchers must be mindful that readers’ perceptions may influence modality preference; however, modality preference may not positively influence EAL reading performance. / Graduate / 0279 / 0535 / 0290 / hillcj@uvic.ca

This study investigated the validity of the Reading Level Achievement Test of the English Language Center (ELC) of Brigham Young University. Test validation is a complicated process that involves evaluation of various types of validity. It was beyond the scope of this study to investigate different types of validity of the Reading LAT. The present study was only focused on the exam's construct validity. In an effort to validate the LAT, various models of reading comprehension were examined with the purpose of defining the construct of academic reading comprehension. The TOEFL academic reading framework was chosen to be the construct of academic reading comprehension for the present study. The ELC's reading objectives and the Reading LAT items were compared to the construct of academic reading comprehension as defined in the TOEFL framework. The results of this comparison suggest that neither the current ELC reading objectives, nor the current ELC Reading LAT adequately measures students' academic reading comprehension as defined in the construct.

Searching, accessing, reading, and storing academic literature is increasingly done with the help of digital devices. This master’s thesis presents the results of a qualitative study on researchers’ academic reading practices, including the surrounding practices of searching for and storing the literature. The aim of this thesis is to gain a deeper understanding of researchers' use of academic literature on paper and on screens. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with ten researchers within four different research areas from a university college in Norway. The theoretical framework used to discuss the results is practice theory, with the concepts materiality and affordance. Key findings are that there is not always concordance between what the researchers say they prefer and what they do, as they have a pragmatic approach. The respondents see pros and cons of both formats, and they use both, depending on the situation and what their aim is. The surrounding practices are often done digitally, while deep reading is preferred to do on paper, by the majority. The first reading of a text, which is browsing through it to see whether the text is relevant or not, is always done on screen, while most of the respondents prefer to print out articles when they are to be read thoroughly, as they value the physical properties of paper. However, the respondents of this study are more positive to screen reading than what is seen in previous research, and many of them wish to improve their skills when it comes to e-reading.Keywords: Academic reading, researchers, digital reading, reading practices,

With over 765,000 English-as-a-second-language (ESL) students studying in the United States, a greater understanding of the academic requirements and demands these students face while studying in the US is needed. Some of the biggest challenges they face include the amount of reading required and the various tasks employed with academic reading. University reading tasks require more than an understanding of the text. These tasks place a strong emphasis on text comprehension, summary, synthesis, and critical analysis. This is problematic as students, especially ESL learners, lack experience with academic tasks, and many additionally struggle with low metacognitive awareness, limited or low reading fluency, limited vocabulary, and difficulty understanding text organization. This article will present a research-informed website, A Teacher's Guide to Academic Reading, designed for teachers preparing ESL learners for the demands and difficulties of university reading. A Teacher's Guide to Academic Reading specifically informs teachers of academic reading demands and provides resources to help their learners develop fluent reading skills, critical reading skills, and general academic skills.

In the past, the focus in language testing, teaching and research has largely been on careful reading while expeditious (quick, efficient and selective) reading has been largely ignored. However, some research suggests that careful reading ability alone is inadequate for students to meet the demands of undergraduate academic reading. In the main English for Academic Purposes (EAP), test instruments have been previously based on careful reading models which assume reading to be unicomponential. If this is not the case, the issue for language testing is whether the construct of academic reading can be validly measured by a focus on careful reading alone. The aims of this study were to investigate the types of academic reading required of firstyear undergraduates based on Urquhart and Weir's (1998) four-cell matrix of reading types which also forms an important part of Khalifa and Weir's (2009) reading model. Based on this, a valid academic reading test battery for undergraduate students was developed and used to examine the divisibility of the academic reading construct. The literature review on reading models suggested that current models were nearly all premised on careful reading and expeditious reading had in the main been ignored. The findings of a pilot and main questionnaire survey with undergraduates suggested that both careful and expeditious reading were important in accomplishing academic reading tasks at the undergraduate level. Accordingly, the empirical data generated by these surveys validated Urquhart and Weir's (2009) reading matrix and aspects of the reading model by Khalifa and Weir (2009). Based on this matrix and aspects of the model, a valid reading test was developed and administered to first-year undergraduate students. The performance of undergraduates across the different parts of the reading test confirmed that academic reading was a divisible construct. The findings of this study add to the literature on EAL academic reading by lending empirical support to a componential approach to the teaching and testing of reading. The componential model and the test design methodology employed should help test designers develop valid academic reading tests embracing both careful and expeditious reading types. The results from such tests might usefully inform pedagogical practice leading to more efficient reading practice at undergraduate level.

The present study aimed to establish a test development and validation framework of reading-into-writing tests to improve the accountability of using the integrated task type to assess test takers' ability in Academic English. This study applied Weir's (2005) socio-cognitive framework to collect three components of test validity: context validity, cognitive validity and criterion-related validity of two common types of reading-into-writing test tasks (essay task with multiple verbal inputs and essay task with multiple verbal and non-verbal inputs). Through literature review and a series of pilot, a set of contextual and cognitive parameters that are useful to explicitly describe the features of the target academic writing tasks and the cognitive processes required to complete these tasks successfully was defined at the pilot phase of this study. A mixed-method approach was used in the main study to establish the context, cognitive and criterion-related validity of the reading-into-writing test tasks. First of all, for context validity, expert judgement and automated textual analysis were applied to examine the degree of correspondence of the contextual features (overall task setting and input text features) of the reading-into-writing test tasks to those of the target academic writing tasks. For cognitive validity, a cognitive process questionnaire was developed to assist participants to report the processes they employed on the two reading-into-writing test tasks and two real-life academic tasks. A total of 443 questionnaires from 219 participants were collected. The analysis of the cognitive validity included three stands: 1) the cognitive processes involved in real-life academic writing, 2) the extent to which these processes are elicited by the reading-into-writing test tasks, and 3) the underlying structure of the processes elicited by the reading-into-writing test tasks. A range of descriptive, inferential and factor analyses were performed on the questionnaire data. The participants' scores on these real-life academic and reading-into-writing test tasks were collected for correlational analyses to investigate the criterion-related validity of the test tasks. The findings of the study support the context, cognitive and criterion-related validity of the integrated reading-into-writing task type. In terms of context validity, the two reading-into-writing tasks largely resembled the overall task setting, the input text features and the linguistic complexity of the input texts of the real-life tasks in a number of important ways. Regarding cognitive validity, the results revealed 11 cognitive processes involved in 5 phases of real-life academic writing as well as the extent to which these processes were elicited by the test tasks. Both reading-into-writing test tasks were able to elicit from high-achieving and low-achieving participants most of these cognitive processes to a similar extent as the participants employed the processes on the real-life tasks. The medium-achieving participants tended to employ these processes more on the real-life tasks than on the test tasks. The results of explanatory factor analysis showed that both test tasks were largely able to elicit from the participants the same underlying cognitive processes as the real-life tasks did. Lastly, for criterion-related validity, the correlations between the two reading-into-writing test scores and academic performance reported in this study are apparently better than most previously reported figures in the literature. To the best of the researcher's knowledge, this study is the first study to validate two types of reading-into-writing test tasks in terms of three validity components. The results of the study proved with empirical evidence that reading-into-writing tests can successfully operationalise the appropriate contextual features of academic writing tasks and the cognitive processes required in real-life academic writing under test conditions, and the reading-into-writing test scores demonstrated a promising correlation to the target academic performance. The results have important implications for university admissions officers and other stakeholders; in particular they demonstrate that the integrated reading-into-writing task type is a valid option when considering language teaching and testing for academic purposes. The study also puts forward a test framework with explicit contextual and cognitive parameters for language teachers, test developers and future researchers who intend to develop valid reading-into-writing test tasks for assessing academic writing ability and to conduct validity studies in such integrated task type.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-07-27T13:52:19Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 PEDRO FERNANDO SAHIUM.pdf: 480749 bytes, checksum: ff99b49775e6557fe14bede0abf19947 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-12-07 / This study strives to verify whether the reading practice of higher education students reflects the importance of reading within the environment of university level education. Academic reading is different from day-to-day reading, as it is done by obligation, in order to learn something that will later be evaluated. Taking into consideration the various components that emerge with the reading of a text (psychological, historical, socio-economical, and others), I make a description of the act of reading through the decifering, comprehension and rewriting of texts, and I analyse what type of reading is manifested by the students in the university. I take into account cultural issues and the demands of the capitalist socio-economic system that create specific reading situations which are mediated, collective and often manipulated. Reading is seen as a social and cultural construction that antecedes the undergraduate years and run along those years of higher education. By identifying what type of reading students bring with them as they enter the university and how they manage when faced with reading required by professors, this study focuses on the years spent at university and the changes brought about by the reading assignments suggested by the professors. The students are considered to be creative readers, inventors of meaning, but always inserted in a social and cultural context of much weight and influence. The analyses are those of the readings done by students although the role of the professor as the mediator of the learning process is also underlined. The central concern is the activity of the students, with some added observations taken from interviews with professors. / Este trabalho busca verificar se a prática de leitura realizada pelos alunos do curso superior reflete a importância dela no contexto da formação universitária. A leitura na Universidade é a que se diferencia da leitura do cotidiano. Ela é realizada por obrigação, para aprender algum conteúdo que deverá ser examinado. Sem desconsiderar os diversos arranjos 􀂱 psicológicos, históricos, socioeconômicos e outros 􀂱 que aparecem na leitura de um texto, faço uma descrição sobre o ato de ler através da decifração, compreensão e reescrita dos textos, e analiso o tipo de leitura que se manifesta na Universidade, na prática dos alunos. Levo em consideração a questão cultural e as demandas do sistema social e econômico capitalista que criam situações específicas de leituras, que são mediadas, coletivas e, não raramente, manipuladas. A prática de leitura é vista como construção social e cultural que antecede os anos de ensino superior e se prolonga durante os anos de estudo na universidade. Visando a identificar as maneiras de ler que os alunos trazem ao ingressarem na universidade e como eles se comportam diante das propostas de leituras apresentadas pelos professores, esta pesquisa se concentra nos anos de formação universitária, verificando as mudanças trazidas pelas leituras acadêmicas sugeridas pelos docentes. Os alunos são considerados leitores criativos, inventores de significados, porém sempre inseridos num contexto social e cultural de muito peso e influência. As análises feitas são das leituras realizadas pelos alunos, embora seja destacado o papel dos professores enquanto mediadores do processo de aprendizagem. O foco central está nas práticas discentes, com algumas observações coletadas em entrevistas com professores.

There has been growing concern in the higher education sector in South Africa about the high number of students with low academic literacy (AL) levels who are gaining entry into the sector. This influx necessitated the introduction of academic literacy interventions which are aimed at supporting these students in meeting the academic literacy requirements of university education. As a result, the tertiary sector has seen a growing number of AL interventions, each catering for a different context. However, the available literature reports very little substantial evidence on the impact/effectiveness of such interventions regarding the purpose for which they have been designed. The Vaal Triangle Campus (VTC) of the North-West University has also found that the majority of first year students who register at this Campus in order to attain a tertiary qualification, show inadequate levels of academic literacy in English. However, the academic literacy intervention that is currently used at this campus has never been formally assessed for its effectiveness in improving students’ academic literacy levels. The purpose of the current study was therefore to investigate the impact of the academic literacy intervention on students’ academic literacy levels. This intervention, which consists of two complementary semester modules, is offered over a one-year period to new first year students. As a first step, a comprehensive literature survey was conducted on important changes that took place in the tertiary education sector after 1994. The reason for this enquiry is based on the fact that many of these changes, such as the ‘massification’ of tertiary education, had far-reaching consequences for the tertiary sector in terms of more underprepared students who gained access to university education. Furthermore, available literature on the types of academic literacy interventions in South Africa, as well as specific sources on the reported impact of such interventions, were critiqued. The empirical part of the study made use of both a qualitative and quantitative research paradigm in order to investigate the impact of the AL intervention at the VTC. A highly reliable academic literacy test (the TALL – Test of Academic Literacy Levels) was used to determine whether students showed any significant improvement in their levels of academic literacy as a result of the intervention. This study reports positive findings in this regard. The investigation further gathered opinion-based data through the administration of three questionnaires aimed at determining student and lecturer perceptions of the impact of the intervention. The main findings of the two student questionnaires (one administered for each AL module) show that students generally see the value in attending the academic literacy modules because they feel that they derive benefit from them. The findings of the lecturer survey indicate that although mainstream lecturers are acutely aware of the low academic literacy levels of their students, they do not see the impact of the intervention on improving such levels. They are further not very knowledgeable about what the focus of the intervention entails. The main conclusion of this study is, in brief, that the academic literacy intervention has a definite effect on the improvement of students’ academic literacy levels. However, no conclusive data was found to support the idea that the improvement was due only to the influence of the intervention. / MA (Applied Language Studies), North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2014

There has been growing concern in the higher education sector in South Africa about the high number of students with low academic literacy (AL) levels who are gaining entry into the sector. This influx necessitated the introduction of academic literacy interventions which are aimed at supporting these students in meeting the academic literacy requirements of university education. As a result, the tertiary sector has seen a growing number of AL interventions, each catering for a different context. However, the available literature reports very little substantial evidence on the impact/effectiveness of such interventions regarding the purpose for which they have been designed. The Vaal Triangle Campus (VTC) of the North-West University has also found that the majority of first year students who register at this Campus in order to attain a tertiary qualification, show inadequate levels of academic literacy in English. However, the academic literacy intervention that is currently used at this campus has never been formally assessed for its effectiveness in improving students’ academic literacy levels. The purpose of the current study was therefore to investigate the impact of the academic literacy intervention on students’ academic literacy levels. This intervention, which consists of two complementary semester modules, is offered over a one-year period to new first year students. As a first step, a comprehensive literature survey was conducted on important changes that took place in the tertiary education sector after 1994. The reason for this enquiry is based on the fact that many of these changes, such as the ‘massification’ of tertiary education, had far-reaching consequences for the tertiary sector in terms of more underprepared students who gained access to university education. Furthermore, available literature on the types of academic literacy interventions in South Africa, as well as specific sources on the reported impact of such interventions, were critiqued. The empirical part of the study made use of both a qualitative and quantitative research paradigm in order to investigate the impact of the AL intervention at the VTC. A highly reliable academic literacy test (the TALL – Test of Academic Literacy Levels) was used to determine whether students showed any significant improvement in their levels of academic literacy as a result of the intervention. This study reports positive findings in this regard. The investigation further gathered opinion-based data through the administration of three questionnaires aimed at determining student and lecturer perceptions of the impact of the intervention. The main findings of the two student questionnaires (one administered for each AL module) show that students generally see the value in attending the academic literacy modules because they feel that they derive benefit from them. The findings of the lecturer survey indicate that although mainstream lecturers are acutely aware of the low academic literacy levels of their students, they do not see the impact of the intervention on improving such levels. They are further not very knowledgeable about what the focus of the intervention entails. The main conclusion of this study is, in brief, that the academic literacy intervention has a definite effect on the improvement of students’ academic literacy levels. However, no conclusive data was found to support the idea that the improvement was due only to the influence of the intervention. / MA (Applied Language Studies), North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2014

English language learners (ELLs) face many linguistic and cultural challenges in their attempts to succeed academically. They encounter complex academic text, which is increasingly presented online. Although some research has addressed the challenges that university-level ELLs face when reading online texts, almost all of this prior work has focused on undergraduates. The purpose of the current study was to investigate the reading strategies employed by graduate-level ELLs when reading an academic English text online. Participating in the study were four foreign-born doctoral students from different first-language backgrounds—Arabic, Korean, Urdu, and Vietnamese—and the focus was on commonalities as well as differences among them. All four were enrolled in the same doctoral-level course, which included the reading of a specific online academic article as a course requirement. When reading this text individually, each student participated in a think-aloud procedure, followed by post-reading and discourse-based interviews. Analyses included unitizing data from the think-aloud protocols, coding units for strategies employed, and considering related interview commentary and classroom contributions. In their reading, these students made major use of problem-solving strategies, especially reading segments aloud and questioning. They also employed evaluative strategies as well as metacognitive strategies, which included affirming their understanding or indicating lack of understanding. With respect to global strategies, all made use of the article’s abstract and used the cursor to scroll forward to preview the article. In contrast to previous research with undergraduates, these students made little use of support strategies that involved translation websites. Instead, their major support strategies were navigating to web-based tools, particularly online encyclopedias in English. Despite prior theory and research suggesting the importance of sociorhetorical strategies in academic reading, only one student directed much attention to the authors of the article and to authorial intent. Although all four participants were students in the same doctoral course and were reading the same contextualized article, their strategy use differed in ways that seemed to be related to their educational and cultural backgrounds. Through its detailed analyses of these acts of academic reading, the study contributes to research into the sociocultural nature of ELL students’ reading process.