Successful and unsuccessful readers' use of reading strategies

Abstract

This study was designed to investigate (a) generic reading strategy use as reported by the students and (b) the extent to which successful and unsuccessful readers differ in their use of reading strategies. The study was conducted with 112 upper-intermediate level students at Middle East Technical University (METU), Department of Basic English (DBE) in the spring semester of 2005. Data were collected through two questionnaires and two stimulated recall tasks. The first questionnaire was given to 112 students to investigate generic strategy use as reported by the students. The second questionnaire, administered to 17 successful and 17 unsuccessful readers, chosen from among the 112 students, provided data about how much previous strategy instruction successful and unsuccessful readers recalled. Stimulated recall tasks done with two successful andtwo unsuccessful readers provided insight into the reading strategies these students reported using while performing the reading tasks. To analyze the data, means, frequencies, and standard deviations were calculated. In addition, t-tests were run to explore the possible differences between the responses given by successful and unsuccessful readers. The results indicate that the students overall made frequent use of 12 reading strategies. However, successful and unsuccessful readers did not differ significantly in their reported use of reading strategies and recall of strategy instruction. In the stimulated recall of reading task performance, however, successful and unsuccessful readers differed in their strategy use. Successful readers reported using more strategies, more top-down strategies and more DBE-instructed strategies than did unsuccessful readers.