AN INVESTIGATION OF THE OUTCOMES OF READING INSTRUCTION FOR LEARNING FROM SCIENCE TEXTS AT THE UPPER SECONDARY LEVEL

Abstract

The study sets out to investigate the reading habits of upper secondary pupils in relation to the learning of Physics and to determine whether these pupils would benefit from reading instruction which is integrated with the content of the Physics textbook.The study was conducted in two parts. In the first part, data on the reading habits for learning Physics were collected through a questionnaire administered to 11 7 secondary three pupils, interviews with 18 lower-achievers in Physics and a questionnaire administered to six upper secondary science teachers. Based on these measures, some reading difficulties in relation to the Physics textbook were identified. Although general opinion indicated that the textbook was easy to read, two-thirds of the pupil questionnaire respondents reported difficulties in making sense of what they read in the textbook. Just over half of the respondents reported that they sometimes, if not always, ignored text-reading assignments and many pupils utilised shortcut strategies to minimise the amount of such reading. Nonetheless, the textbook was the pupils' primary resource in preparation for assessment. However, there was an over-reliance on memorisation of text information and only a small minority utilised summarising or identification of main points. Difficulty in identification of main points was evident in the summaries given by the 18 interviewees and was also observed in the interviewees' underlining of "main points" which included many peripheral details. Teachers who participated in the survey reported that a considerable portion of pupils lacked skills needed for effective reading and learning from text. In an attempt to address such reading problems, the second part of the study focused on the pupils most in need of an improved instructional programme - the "lower-achievers" in Physics. 41 lower-achievers attended weekly sessions over a six week period in addition to their regular Physics curriculum. 18 of these pupils ( experimental treatment group) received reading instruction on comprehension monitoring, surveying and identification of text patterns for note taking from the Physics textbook. The remaining 23 pupils (conventional treatment group) were exposed to a conventional, content-based approach utilising Physics worksheets. The researcher administered the treatments to both groups in weekly 70-minute sessions for a period of 6 weeks. Outcomes of instruction given to the two groups were measured qualitatively and quantitatively. Qualitative measures included questionnaires, interviews, pupils' task products and researcher's diary. Quantitative data included pupils' scores in the mid-year Physics examination scores, a prior knowledge test and a post-treatment test. The qualitative data indicated that the experimental treatment group made gains in content terms and demonstrated an increased awareness of reading-for learning strategies. Except for the reading activity on comprehension monitoring, Vl the remammg content-reading strategies produced generally positive outcomes based on pupil evaluations. The conventional treatment participants made gains in predominantly content terms. Quantitative analysis of post-test scores using matched subjects from treatment and no-treatment groups indicated that the experimental and conventional treatment had moderate positive effects on participants' performance in the post-test (with effect sizes of 0.41 and 0.56 respectively).