The effects of student awareness of goals on success in and attitudes towards a reading course at Gaziosmanpaşa University

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buir.advisorKlinghammer, Sarah J.
dc.contributor.authorDemir, Dursun
dc.date.accessioned2016-07-01T11:08:28Z
dc.date.available2016-07-01T11:08:28Z
dc.date.issued2002
dc.departmentM.A. in Teaching English as a Foreign Languageen_US
dc.descriptionCataloged from PDF version of article.en_US
dc.description.abstractThe present study investigated the effects of goal setting on students' success in and attitudes towards a reading course. Moreover, the study also revealed the relationship between attitudes towards reading in general and attitudes towards a reading course, attitudes and gender, and attitudes and proficiency level. The study was conducted in the preparatory classes at Gaziosmanpaşa University, Tokat, Turkey. Fifty-two (twenty female, thirty-two male) pre-intermediate level preparatory students participated in this study. The study sought to investigate three research questions. The first research question compared the relationship between the subjects' attitudes towards reading in general and toward their reading course, further differentiated according to gender and proficiency level. The second research question concerned the effect of goal setting on attitudes towards a reading course. The third research question concerned the effect of goal setting on success. Concerning the second and third research questions, two hypotheses were made: 1) Students who set their personal goals will show more positive attitudes than students in the control group. 2) Students who set their personal goals will show higher performance than those in the control group. In order to investigate the research questions and test the hypotheses, two classes, one as the experimental and the other as the control group, were selected. Prior to the treatment both groups took an attitude survey and an achievement test. The survey consisted of forty items. Subjects were asked to indicate their responses to each statement on a 5-point Likert-scale, from "strongly agree" to "strongly disagree". The test consisted of fifty questions. The experimental group was provided with the goal list of the reading course every week and required to write down some of the goals to be practiced in the subsequent week, whereas the control group just followed their regular syllabus. The treatment lasted for eight weeks. After the treatment, both groups took the same survey and the same test they took prior to the treatment. The data were analyzed by running t-tests. The results of the presurvey revealed that (a) Subjects had significantly more positive attitudes towards reading in general than they had towards the reading course (p<. 01). (b) Female students had slightly more positive attitudes than male students but the difference was not significant. (c) High proficient students had more positive attitudes than low proficient students and the difference was significant (p<. 05). Post-survey results indicated that setting goals does not foster more positive students attitudes thus, the first hypothesis was rejected. Posttest results indicated that setting goals does not increase students success thus, the second hypothesis was rejected, also. The findings of this study indicate that although setting goals fostered slightly more positive student attitudes towards a reading course and slightly increased their success in the same course, the changes were not statistically significant. However, it is difficult to make generalizations about the findings of the current study because of limitations of time and treatment.en_US
dc.description.degreeM.A.en_US
dc.description.provenanceMade available in DSpace on 2016-07-01T11:08:28Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 0002092.pdf: 484042 bytes, checksum: 3f16a5ce9a77e6a1e1b47fe9c3ba6a21 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2002en
dc.description.statementofresponsibilityDemir, Dursunen_US
dc.format.extentxii, 89 leavesen_US
dc.identifier.itemidBILKUTUPB067593
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/11693/29901
dc.language.isoEnglishen_US
dc.publisherBilkent Universityen_US
dc.rightsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccessen_US
dc.subject.lccPE1068.T8 D46 2002en_US
dc.subject.lcshEnglish language Study and teaching (Higher) Turkish speakers.en_US
dc.titleThe effects of student awareness of goals on success in and attitudes towards a reading course at Gaziosmanpaşa Universityen_US
dc.typeThesisen_US

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