Reading into Writing Strategies Construction: a Quasi-Experimental

Design

Imelda Hermilinda Abas

(93847)

Why Literacy?

• In the context of EFL, literacy encompasses ways of knowing particular content, languages and practices (Johns, 1997).

• It also refers to a variety of previous experiences, not only with texts, but with parents, teachers, and others who are literate (Gee, 1991; Heath, 1986).

• In sum, academic literacy (reading and writing) among the EFL learners is chose as the central of this study because it reflects the complexity and evolving nature of teaching and learning process of English as foreign language.

Background of the Study

10-14 years old19%

15-44 years old26%

45 years above55%

Illiteracy

Source: Badan Pusat Statistik, 2010

98.02

86.24

56.01

13.77

0

20

40

60

80

100

120

7-8 years old 13-15 years old

16-18 years old

19-24 years old

Children with Formal Education

7-8 years old

13-15 years old

16-18 years old

19-24 years old

Source: Badan Pusat Statistik, 2010

• In the typical secondary school classroom teachers mostly dominate talk. Teachers urge the students to listen, to obey and to memorise things (Buchori, 2001).

• Questioning is seen “to challenge teacher’s authority, and to demonstrate one’s arrogance or ignorance – to risk the possibility of punishment or personal humiliation (loss of social face)” (Lewis, 1997, p.13).

• English is learnt as a foreign language; and though it is one of the compulsory subjects in secondary and tertiary education

• Moreover, “English is seldom used in the classroom as teachers tend to use Bahasa Indonesia to carry out their English lessons in the classroom.

Problem Statement

• In case of EFL reading and writing skills as refer to the academic literacy, Indonesian students, both who study at abroad and domestic universities, are still having difficulties in mastering these skills (Novera, 2004).

• Research has also revealed that many ESL/ EFL students are not highly proficient in English reading and writing (Tapinta, 2006).

• In mastering academic literacy such as reading and writing, cognitive skills (learning, memory and thoughts) are crucial, because the students will have the ability to interpret content and thus effectively interpret the messages intended by the authors (Tapinta, 2006; Hartman, 2001; Schraw, 2001).

Problem Statement• In the case of Indonesian EFL students, they learn to read and write in

English mainly through an instructional approach which is teacher-directed, with an emphasis placed on the products of students’ performances.

• In the tertiary level of education, the majority of Indonesian students have a few opportunities to practice English writing beyond the paragraph level.

• On the other hand, students are not trained to think about how they can develop their cognitive strategies to enhance different writing processes.

• So far, however, there has been little discussion about the relationship between reading and writing, specifically in reading into writing strategies construction for Indonesian undergraduate students to apply in their writings.

• there is still few research found that surveyed on whether or not the students know and applied their cognitive and meta-cognitive knowledge in their writing.

To investigate the differences of reading and writing strategy used at the pre and post test.

To determine the relationship between reading and writing.

To analyse the differences in reading-to-write construction at the pre and post treatment.

To evaluate the effects of the treatment to the students’ reading and writing ability.

What are cognitive and metacognitivestrategies used by the students in reading and writing pre-test and post-test?

Is there significant relationship between reading and writing?

Having been exposed to cognitive and metacognitive strategies, is there a significant difference in reading into writing strategies used at the pre and post treatment?

Research Objectives and Questions

What are the effects of the treatment to the students’ reading

and writing ability?

Hypothesis

• Knowledge of and expertise which involved learning strategies in reading and writing help readers and writers become more proficient (Tapinta, 2006)

• Teaching students to know how, when, and why they can use strategies will enhance their learning to read and write metacognitively (Carell, 2001; Sternberg, 2001).

• Teaching students to read and write metacognitivelypromotes their potential of becoming expert readers and writers (e.g., Block, 1992; Brown, Palincsar, & Armbruster, 1994; El- Hindi, 1997; Pintrich, 2002; Stolarek, 1994; Williams & Colomb, 1993)

Why Quasi Experimental?

• According to Gay, Mills and Airasian (2009: 240), experimentalresearch is the only type of research that can test hypothesesto establish cause-effect relations. It represents the strongestchain of reasoning about the links between variables.

• In experimental research, the researcher manipulates at leastone variable, controls other relevant variables, and observesthe effect on one or more dependent variables. Theresearcher determines “who gets what” (p. 240); that is theresearcher has control over the selection and assignment ofgroups to treatment.

Why Quasi Experimental?

• Quasi experiment employs intact groups as the sample and non-equivalent control group design. This means that the experimental design of this study will use the pre-test and post-test control, where two treatment groups will be pretested, participated in a treatment, and post tested.

• The research design can be seen in the following:

O – X1 – O1

O – X2 – O2

• Control group

O = Pre-test ; X1 = writing treatment; O1 = Post-test

• Experimental group

O = Pre-test ; X1 = reading and writing treatment; O1 = Post-test

Limitation of the Study

Possible Threats Action

History

Provide the same activities for both experimental groups, except for the treatment, and allocate sufficient time (i.e. not too long, not too short) for conducting the experiment (Creswell, 2009; Gay, Mills and Airasian, 2009).

MaturationChoose participants from the same grade level and age (Creswell, 2009).

Mortality

Collect demographic information on the participants before the experiment start and then determining if the makeup of the groups has changed at the end of the study (Gay, Mills, and Airasian, 2009: 245; Creswell, 2009).

Limitation of the Study

Possible Threats Action

Testing

schedule the time period span between the pre-test and post-test within a month period (Creswell, 2009; Gay, Mills and Airasian, 2009).

Instrumentation

Creswell (2008) suggests standardizing procedures so that the researcher uses the same observational scales or instrument throughout the experiment.

RegressionSelect participant with average or moderate score in the pre-test (Creswell, 2009; Gay, Mills and Airasian, 2009).

Participants

Select intact classes with big number of students then select the participants with the average or moderate scores to join the treatment (Creswell, 2009; Gay, Mills and Airasian, 2009).

Significance and Scope of Study

• EFL students’ knowledge/ awareness of strategy use and their abilities inapplying such strategies in reading and writing has not been discussedextensively in the literature. This better understanding may help informclassroom teachers and educators about what pedagogical considerationsneeds to be taken when developing or implementing instruction to promotestudents’ strategic knowledge and expertise in English reading and writing.

• Also, the findings and discussions of the theoretical and practical implicationsfrom this study should contribute to the body of research knowledge in thefield of English literacy development for EFL learners.

• This research covers the reading into writing strategies construction inincreasing the undergraduate students’ writing skills.

• This study is not meant to generalize the whole Indonesian students since itonly focuses on the undergraduate university students of HasanuddinUniversity.

• Finally, this study also limits its focus on reading strategies, writing strategiesand the relationship between all the variables.

Instruments

The questionnaire use in this study is a five-point Likert scale questionnaire (Never/ Seldom/ Sometimes/ Usually/ and Always). There are 27 items (out of which 14 items were metacognitive and 13 items were cognitive in nature) in this study adapted from Maghsudi and Talebi (2009

The test will be taken from TOEFL complete practice test one of the Reading Comprehension Section of the TOEFL Complete Practice Test (Mahnke & Duffy, 1996) will be used as a pre-test and post-test, to measure of the students’ English reading proficiency.

The interview questions adapted from Tapinta, Pataraporn (2006); following Burg’s guideline of the semi-structured interview (2004) and these questions will be tried out in pilot studies and refined for this study

The Checklists of Reading and Writing Strategies (adapted from Tapinta, Pataraporn, 2006) is to raise the students’ awareness of strategy use.

Data Collection

Administer the pre-test

Selecting participants with the average or moderate scores in

the pre-test

Introducing experimental treatment to

experimental group and control group

Monitoring the process closely so

that threat of internal validity are minimized

Administer the post-test (the outcome)

Organize and Analyze the data

Data Analysis

Research Question Data Resource Data Analysis

What and how are cognitive and metacognitive strategies used by the students in reading and writing pre-test?

Pre-test and post-test

Reading strategy

questionnaire

Checklist writing strategy

t-test

ANCOVA analysis

Is there significant relationship

between reading and writing?

Pre-test and post-test

Interview

Descriptive statistic for

reading and writing

measure

Having been exposed to cognitive and

metacognitive strategies, is there a

significant difference in reading into

writing strategies used at the pre and

post treatment?

Reading strategy checklist

and writing strategy

checklist

Interview

Qualitative analysis

What are the effects of the treatment to the students’ reading and writing ability?

Interview Qualitative analysis