AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE USE OF METACOGNITIVE STRATEGIES IN READING ENGLISH OF VISUALLY IMPAIRED STUDENTS AT ULIS a CASE STUDY = sử DỤNG CHIẾN THUẬT SIÊU NHẬN THỨC TRONG KHI đọc TIẾNG ANH của SINH VIÊN KHIẾM THỊ ở TR

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION GRADUATION PAPER AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE USE OF META

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATION

GRADUATION PAPER

AN INVESTIGATION INTO THE USE OF METACOGNITIVE STRATEGIES IN READING ENGLISH OF VISUALLY IMPAIRED STUDENTS AT ULIS - A CASE STUDY

HA NOI - 2021

ĐẠI HỌC QUỐC GIA HÀ NỘI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ KHOA SƯ PHẠM TIẾNG ANH

KHOÁ LUẬN TỐT NGHIỆP

SỬ DỤNG CHIẾN THUẬT SIÊU NHẬN THỨC TRONG KHI ĐỌC TIẾNG ANH CỦA SINH VIÊN KHIẾM THỊ Ở

TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ - NGHIÊN CỨU TRƯỜNG HỢP ĐIỂN HÌNH

Giáo viên hướng dẫn: Cao Thúy Hồng (T.S) Sinh viên: Nguyễn Linh Giang

Lớp: QH2017.F1.E6

HÀ NỘI – NĂM 2021

ACCEPTANCE PAGE

I hereby state that I: Nguyen Linh Giang – QH12017.F1.E6, being a candidate for the degree of Bachelor of Arts (Mainstream program) accept the requirements of the College relating to the retention and use of Bachelor’s Graduation Paper deposited in the library

In terms of these conditions, I agree that the origin of my paper deposited in the library should be accessible for the purposes of study and research, in accordance with the normal conditions established by the librarian for the care, loan or reproduction of the paper

Signature

Date: June 9 2021

Secondly, I am grateful to Minh Nguyet and Thu Phuong for giving me so much invaluable advice and materials Moreover, my sincere thanks go to three participants and my close friends including Thanh, Ngoc, Loan, Sang, Minh Anh for their kindness and willingness to help whenever I needed I also wish to send my deep appreciation to Nha Uyen for being my lifesaver and inspiration

Last but not least, I am indebted to my family, especially my mother who always stood by me and provided every condition to facilitate my process of writing the thesis

Keywords: metacognitive reading strategies, visually impaired students

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS i

ABSTRACT ii

TABLE OF CONTENTS iii

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES v

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS vi

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1

1.1 Statement of the problems and rationale for the study 1

1.2 Research aims and research questions 3

1.3 Scope of the study 3

1.4 Significance of the research 3

1.5 Organzation 4

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW 5

2.1 Definition of key concepts 5

Visual impairment 5

Metacognition 6

Meta-cognitive strategies 7

Metacognitive reading strategy 7

2.2 Use of metacognitive strategy and reading comprehension 8

2.3 Framework of the study 9

Research question 1: What are the metacognitive strategies employed by visually impaired students in reading English? 9

Research question 2: What are the factors that affected their choice of metacognitive strategies? 14

2.4 Research gap 14

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY 16

3.1 Research participants and sampling 16

3.2 Qualitative research approach 17

3.3 Case-study research design 18

3.4 Data collection methods and procedure 18

Data collection instruments 18

3.5 Data analysis procedure and methods 22

Thematic Analysis 22

Procedure of data analysis 23

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION 26

4.1 Question 1: What are the metacognitive strategies employed by visually impaired students in reading English? 26

Case 1: Moon - The advanced organizer 26

Case 2: Susan - an average planner 30

Case 3: Lily - an inconsistent monitor 32

Cross-case analysis and discussion 34

4.2 What are the factors that affected their choice of metacognitive strategies? 35 Nature of the disability 39

Learning styles 40

Motivation and interest 41

Lexical range 43

Self-efficacy 44

Technological hindrance 45

CHAPTER 5: CONCLUSION 48

5.1 Summary of key findings 48

5.2 Implication 48

For students 49

For teachers 49

For curriculum developers and policy developers 50

5.3 Limitations of the study 50

5.4 Suggestions for future research 51

REFERENCES 52

APPENDICES 59

APPENDIX 1 – CONSENT LETTER 59

APPENDIX 2 – STUDENT INTERVIEW PROTOCOL 61

APPENDIX 3 – READING COMPREHENSION TEST 64

LIST OF TABLES AND FIGURES

Table 2.1 Category of visual impairment 6

Table 2.2 O’Malley and Chamot L2 learning strategy framework 10

Table 2.3 A framework of the first research question 12

Table 3.1 The profiles of three participants 17

Table 3.2 Description of the reading comprehension test 20

Table 3.3 6 phases of thematic analysis procedure (Braun & Clarke, 2006) 23

Table 3.4 O’Malley and Chamot’s classification of 24

Table 3.5 Examples of coding process 25

Table 4.1 Key factors affecting choice of metacognitive strategies 36

Figure 2.1 Factors affecting students’ metacognitive learning strategies 14

Figure 3.1 Data collection procedure 22

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

CAE: Certificate in Advanced English EFL: English as a Foreign Language ESL: English as a Second Language IELTS: International English Language Testing System

JAWS: Job Access With Speech L2: Second Language TAP: Think-aloud protocol ULIS: University of Languages and International Studies VSTEP: Vietnamese Standardized Test of English Proficiency

WHO: World Health Organization

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION

This chapter aims at stating the rationales behind the researcher’s decision to conduct the study, proposing the aim and two research questions Moreover, the scope and the contribution of the study are mentioned Finally, the organization of the research is summarized at the end of the chapter

1.1 Statement of the problems and rationale for the study

There has been an international shift from the pursuit of the best teaching method to focus on how successful teachers and learners actually achieve their goals

in second language teaching (Schreurs & Dumbraveanu, 2013) It is in line with the change from teacher-centeredness to learner-centeredness, which considers learners

as the core of teaching-learning process A variety of previous studies have stated that one of the most pivotal factors that impact learners’ performance is their choice of learning strategies (Rubin, 1975; Oxford, 1990 & Nunan 1991)

When it comes to reading, the burgeoning demand for understanding the strategies that learners used to improve their reading comprehension and factors that underpins their use of these strategies have been widely discussed (Sarıçoban, 2002; Ozek & Civelek, 2006; Li, 2010) Students who are aware of their cognitive behaviors and are in control of their strategy use throughout all stages of the reading process have been found to attain better performance than those without such thinking (Hoang, 2019) In other words, the role of metacognitive reading strategies - those strategies designed to increase a readers’ knowledge of awareness and control, to improve their reading comprehension, and to evaluate whether their attempts at comprehension have been successful (Usman, Zulfadli & Absida, 2017) - in facilitating students’ reading comprehension is somewhat undeniable

However, most of current research on metacognitive reading strategies at the moment have been conducted on normal students Research on reading strategies in general and metacognitive reading strategies particularly of visually impaired students are almost undetectable With their typical disability, it is almost certain that the way visually impaired students read would differ significantly from that of normal students (Setiawan, Adnyani & Suprianti, 2020) The way they think about reading, organize, and evaluate their reading (i.e., metacognitive strategies) would be different too (Kartikasari & Lestiono, 2017) In order to support visually impaired students with their reading comprehension, understanding about visually impaired students’ choice

of metacognitive reading strategies as well as factors that impact their choice of strategies is of great importance

University of Languages and International Studies (ULIS) has enrolled disabled students since 2014 and become one of a few universities in Vietnam that accept students with disabilities in general and ones with visual impairments in particular ULIS’s development philosophy is “Creating opportunities together”, which aims at granting chances and assistance for all students, regardless of their distinct characteristics (Do, n.d) Towards an inclusive learning environment, the researcher realized the importance of paying attention to a prominent problem that they concern about, which was reading skill

From the observation of the researcher, who has the opportunity to study and befriend a classmate with visual impairment for four years, those students are facing numerous hindrances in reading English since the normal curricula and materials are designed for mainstream students In order to read and understand learning materials and tests, they have to use a special software on Laptop to assist them which is Job Access With Speech (JAWS) It can affect their process of reading considerably Visually impaired students have to adapt to the environment by changing their reading

routines compared to other students in some certain ways The researcher chose the

topic “An investigation into the use of metacognitive strategies in reading English

of visually impaired students at ULIS - a case study” with a view to calling more

attention to this small number of students and exploring their use of metacognitive reading strategies

1.2 Research aims and research questions

The research aims to identify the types of metacognitive strategies that visually impaired students used in reading English as well as factors that affected their choices

of strategies Specifically, it seeks answers to the following research questions:

- What are the metacognitive strategies employed by visually impaired students

in reading English?

- What are the factors that affected their choice of metacognitive strategies?

1.3 Scope of the study

Due to its limited scope and time, this research only focused on metacognitive strategies, other aspects of metacognition such as metacognitive knowledge were not included Furthermore, only meta-cognitive strategies in reading comprehension were investigated; meta-cognitive strategies that visually impaired students used in other skills such as listening, writing and speaking were not within the scope of this study either

1.4 Significance of the research

Currently, research drawing attention to visually impaired students mainly includes how they acquire a second language (Tran & Pho, 2020; Attachoo & Sitthitikul, 2021) and how teachers can teach them effectively (Donley, 2002; Başaran, 2012) However, studies that looked at meta-cognitive strategies used by visually impaired students in reading English as a foreign language have been scarce

Therefore, this study would bring useful insights into an area which so far has been under-investigated Findings from the study would have important implications for both visually impaired students and their teachers Visually impaired students would

be more informed of meta-cognitive strategies that may work for them Teachers of these students may also use findings from this research to inform their instructions (i.e., choice of reading materials, design of classroom activities, as well as ensuring fair assessment of these students’ reading ability) Moreover, this study would inform

a more inclusive approach to teaching English in general and reading comprehension

in particular to visually impaired students Sightless students own some distinct features that need paying particular attention to when they study with other mainstream students Those can be referred to in the implications of this research

1.5 Organzation

The rest of the paper comprises the following chapters

Chapter 2: Literature Review – reviews relevant literature done previous to

this research, including the definitions of key terms and the framework of the study

Chapter 3: Research Methodology – introduces the case study research

design, the setting and participants of the study, followed by the data collection and data analysis procedure

Chapter 4: Findings and Discussion – presents the results of each case,

cross-case analysis and discussion for research question 1 For research question 2, results of each finding and discussion will be displayed simultaneously

Chapter 5: Conclusions – summarises important findings, provides the

implications for students, teachers, curriculum developers and policy developers Some limitations of the study will be mentioned as well as suggestions for future studies will be proposed

CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW

This chapter reviews key concepts that help understand about the topic including visual impairment, metacognition and metacognitive strategies in reading Moreover, previous studies about the use of metacognitive reading strategies will also

In education, visual impairment and blindness are two conditions leading to

special education needs, “an impairment in vision which, even after correction, adversely affects educational performance” (Castellano, 2015, p.15, as cited in

Hoang, 2020) He also mentioned the use of alternative skills and tools to compensate

or supplement eyesight with a view to acquiring information or performing tasks To put it simply, a person is visually impaired if without special aid, he or she cannot read printed text normally

2.1.1.2 Types of visual impairment

The International Classification of Diseases 11 (2020) divided visually

impairment into four levels including:

(1) Mild vision impairment

(2) Moderate visual impairment

(3) Severe visual impairment

Partially sighted have difficulties in seeing and reading information and

require special assistance with learning and reading Low vision be impossible to read at normal distances, have to use

supportive tools to read and see in the environment Legally blind have a vision less than 20/200 and a limited range of

vision, cannot see things clearly whether it is near or far Totally blind have no vision, be unable to process images and learn

through non visual resources, including Braille

Metacognition

Since there are numerous studies about metacognition and metacognitive strategies, their definitions are also widely discussed This term was first invented by Flavell in the middle of 1970s He considered metacognition as a promising area to discover, it is “where the action is” (p.906) Kuhn (2000) summarised his definition

in stating that metacognition reflects, monitors or regulates first-order cognition” (p.178) According to Byrd, Carter, and Waddoups (2001), it is accounted as self-awareness of mental processes Metacognition has another way of conclusion which

is thinking about cognitive behaviors, a higher level of cognition (Anderson, 2002)

Meta-cognitive strategies

From the perspective of a native English speaker, Purpura (1999) found that metacognitive strategies impact significantly, positively and directly on cognitive strategy use, providing clear evidence that the use of metacognitive strategy has an executive function over cognitive strategy use in task completion Moreover, studies

on the use of meta-cognitive strategies among EFL learners in various countries (e.g.,

in South Africa, Dreyer & Oxford, 1996; and in Turkey, Oxford, Judd, & Giesen, 1998) have homogenously suggested that metacognitive strategies are often strong predictors of second language proficiency To be specific, Ahmadi, Ismail and Abdullah (2013) affirmed that metacognitive strategies are strategies that help students regulate or monitor cognitive strategies They are the notions of thinking about thinking, and are defined as, planned, intentional, goal directed, and future-oriented mental processing that can be used to accomplish cognitive tasks (Ahmadi,

et al, 2013) In the overall learning process, metacognitive strategies are employed for managing it well (Goctu, 2017)

Metacognitive reading strategy

According to Aebersold and Field (1997), reading strategies are “the mental activities that the readers use in order to construct meaning from a text” (p 14) The definition of metacognitive reading strategy in foreign language learning has been emphasized by many researchers O’Malley and Chamot (1990) defined metacognitive strategies as strategies which students use to plan, monitor, and evaluate their learning goals and processes.judd Besides, Oxford (1990) considers metacognitive strategies as indirect ones because they facilitate language learning without direct involvement of the target language In fact, readers in dealing with a real text encounter different problems and understanding the reasons behind their use

is of great importance From a metacognitive perspective of Pressley and Afflerbach

(1995), a good reader is a person who employs these strategies in text wherever necessary and tries to make full use of them

2.2 Use of metacognitive strategy and reading comprehension

It can be seen that metacognitive strategies captured the attention of numerous researchers, therefore many studies have been carried out to examine the correlation between the use of metacognitive reading strategies and reading comprehension by learners

Research on that relationship has progressed through several different stages During the early stages, research focused on the investigation of the relationship between metacognition and reading comprehension from the developmental perspective Brown (1980), Baker and Brown (1984) were among the first influential researchers in this field They concluded that young students were ignorant of the effectiveness of metacognitive strategies They were unaware of when they started comprehending or what influenced their process They also lacked self-evaluation for not knowing how to fix the problems

Mokhtari and Reichard (2004) later on also raised a question whether remarkable differences exist between native and second language readers in their metacognitive awareness and perceived use of specific strategies while they were reading academic materials in English To make it more specific, this study examined

350 college students, including 141 American and 209 Moroccan students They were provided with a survey designed to measure their metacognitive awareness of reading strategies The results revealed that despite the fact that two groups studied in significantly different socio-cultural environments, they reported considerably similar patterns of strategy awareness and use while reading for academic purposes Both groups demonstrated a moderate to high awareness level of reading strategies Concerning the types of strategies reported by the subjects, Moroccan students

reported using certain types of strategies (i.e problem-solving strategies) more often than their American counterparts

Concerning the most used strategies among students learning English as a foreign language (EFL) and those learning English as a second language (ESL), Karbalaei (2010) suggested that reading slowly and carefully or re-reading for better understanding was most popular while other strategies such as summarizing, underlining, or note-taking were not so well applied

2.3 Framework of the study

Research question 1: What are the metacognitive strategies employed by visually impaired students in reading English?

According to Oxford (1990), metacognitive strategies in reading comprehension are proposed as follows:

a) clarifying the purposes of reading;

b) identifying the important aspects of a message;

c) monitoring ongoing activities to determine whether comprehension is occurring; d) engaging in self questioning to determine whether goals were being achieved, and e) taking corrective action when failures in comprehension were detected

In O’Mally and Chamot’s framework (1990), language learning strategies are divided into three main categories: (1) metacognitive strategies; (2) cognitive strategies; and (3) social/affective strategies The table below shows how O’Mally and Chamot divide metacognitive strategies into smaller strategies

Table 2.1 O’Malley and Chamot L2 learning strategy framework

MA Metacognitive Thinking about the learning process, planning information,

monitoring the learning task and evaluating how well one has started

Planning

Advance organizers Previewing the main ideas and concepts of the material to

be learned, often by skimming the text for the organizing principle

Directed attention Deciding in advance to attend in general to a learning task

and to ignore the irrelevant distracters

Functional planning Planning for and rehearsing linguistic components

necessary for an upcoming task

Selective attention Deciding in advance to attend to specific aspects of input,

often by scanning for key words, concepts and/or linguistic markers

Self-management Understanding the conditions that help one’s learning and

arranging for the presence of those conditions

Monitoring

Self-monitoring Checking one’s comprehension during listening or reading

or checking the accuracy and/or appropriateness of one’s oral or written production while it is taking place

Evaluating

Self-evaluation Checking the outcomes of one’s own language against a

standard after it has been completed

Framework of Oxford’s and O’Malley and Chamot contain almost all the same categories, such as having a clear purpose in mind about the key concepts of the reading text, keeping track of what is going on, self-questioning when a problem arises and self-evaluating after finishing reading However, O’Malley and Chamot

sorted the framework more particularly and gave a more vivid explanation about

each subcategory

To answer the first research question, the researcher chose to adapt the

framework of O’Malley and Chamot (1990) as they divided metacognitive strategies which are equivalent to three stages of the reading process: Planning - Pre-reading and While-Reading, Monitoring - While-reading and Evaluating - Post-reading They help the researcher find it easy to follow in the think-aloud protocol later However, the researcher did not choose all items in that framework but eliminated some irrelevant ones to reading skills including “Functional planning” and “Self-management” These two skills were two broad and did not reflect directly the reading process Therefore, the framework used for research question 1 is presented below

Table 2.2 A framework of the first research question

Metacognitive

reading strategies

Thinking about the learning process, planning information, monitoring the learning task and evaluating how well one has started

Planning

Advance organizers Previewing the main ideas and concepts of the material to

be learned, often by skimming the text for the organizing principle

Directed attention Deciding in advance to attend in general to a learning task

and to ignore the irrelevant distracters

Selective attention Deciding in advance to attend to specific aspects of input,

often by scanning for key words, concepts and/or linguistic markers

Monitoring

Self-monitoring Checking one’s comprehension during listening or

reading or checking the accuracy and/or appropriateness

of one’s oral or written production while it is taking place

Evaluating

Self-evaluation Checking the outcomes of one’s own language against a

standard after it has been completed

Research question 2: What are the factors that affected their choice of metacognitive strategies?

To find the answers to question 2, the researcher adopted the framework of Owusu and Cobbold (2020) as this is the most suitable framework aiming at factors directly affecting choice of metacognitive learning strategies

Figure 2.1 Factors affecting students’ metacognitive learning strategies

In the framework, there are four main factors influencing students’ choice of metacognitive learning strategies which are “teaching method, learning style, motivation and student-status” They are separate factors but have a relation with each other As can be seen in the figure, teaching method influences students’ learning style, their learning style has an impact on motivation and motivation affects student-status

fewer than those of normal students Those that are applicable to Vietnamese context are even harder to be found

Due to their lack of exposure to reading, it is likely that the strategies that these students employ would also be different from that of normal students This research thus would provide a much-needed insights into visually impaired students’ choice of meta-cognitive reading strategies Findings from the study would have important implications for visually impaired students, their teachers, as well as policy makers and curriculum developers

Moreover, that metacognitive reading strategies affect reading comprehension (Eilers & Pinkley, 2006; Nergis, 2013; Yang & Zhang, 2002) and reading achievement (Berkowitz & Cicchelli, 2004; Ling (2011) have been remarkably proved However, in reverse order, factors impact the choice of metacognitive reading strategies are uncertain to be asserted Few studies pointed out that the two-way relationship could be true

CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY

In this chapter, the researcher provides the description and justification of the research design as well as participants and sampling Next, the data collection and data analysis procedure are presented

3.1 Research participants and sampling

The researcher used convenience sampling because it was the easiest and fastest way to approach the target population Moreover, convenience sampling is often used for case study research (Cohen, Manion & Morrison (2007) Participants chosen are three students studying at the same faculty that the researcher is learning, which created a belief among the researcher and participants Moreover, this is the sensitive population and they may shy away from people having no connections, which was also stated by Cohen, Manion and Morrison (2007) Three participants were also ones who inspired the researcher to conduct the study, therefore they were the most suitable participants that the researcher aimed at All students are females and have visual impairments since their early age This population satisfies the criteria

of the research, which are having the targeted physical characteristic and being willing

to join in in-depth interviews and think-aloud protocol to cooperate with the researcher Since there are only three students having visual impairments in the faculty, they are all selected to participate in the research

All participants are students of the same faculty majoring in English They experienced two first years of studying English as a foreign language with focus on four skills: reading, listening, speaking and writing After that, they continued to learn theoretical knowledge about English language teaching in order that they could apply

it in English teaching career The university required them to achieve a C1 certificate

in their language proficiency Regarding reading ability, they are also expected to be able to read all materials fluently from academic materials to comprehension tests

Table 3.1 The profiles of three participants

Uveitis:

moderate visual impairment Cannot read or see small things

Optic atrophy: moderate visual impairment Cannot read or see small things

Personality outgoing, ambitious,

studious

shy, reserved, progressive

outgoing, optimistic, confident Learning

styles

auditory, logical learner

auditory, logical

learner

auditory, logical learner Level of

technology

skills

3.2 Qualitative research approach

Contrary to quantitative method which aims at targeting a large number of participants, qualitative one is employed to have a deep investigation into each person partaking This approach is beneficial in bringing in an insight into three participants’ personal experience, hence giving a detailed description of their use of metacognitive

reading strategies in English and factors influencing their choice of strategies The qualitative data collected would provide the researcher with more in-depth information through the lens of participants (Denzin & Lincoln, 2008)

3.3 Case-study research design

The research design chosen is case study According to Cohen, Manion and Morrison (2002), “a case study provides a unique example of real people in real situations and enables readers to understand ideas more clearly than simply by presenting them with abstract theories or principles” (p 376) Case study research design is appropriate for this research because it does not aim at generalization but focuses on providing “rich and vivid description of events relevant to the case” and

“blending description with analysis of events” (Hitchcock & Hughes, 1995, p 317)

Creswell (1994) defined the case study as a single example of a bounded system so it could be a child, a clique, a class, a school or a community Yin (2009) added that a case study was a study of a case in a context and it was of great importance to describe the case clearly within its context In this study, each case is considered as each participant or visually impaired student

3.4 Data collection methods and procedure

Data collection instruments

up from the participants’ standpoints, which would clear up any potential misunderstanding

The interview was designed with both fixed and impromptu questions There were three main parts in each of the participant’s interview Part 1 included

questions about the participants’ profile (Q1-4) Next, part 2 contained questions about metacognitive strategies that they used in pre-reading, while-reading and post-reading (Q5-19) Part 3 mentioned questions about factors that they thought affected their choice of metacognitive reading strategies (Q20-24) The researcher might ask impromptu questions when more explanations and details are needed to be given from the participants

With regards to the interview protocol, the researcher based on the literature review and framework to adapt a set of questions for the interview Then a consent letter was sent to all participants to request their permission before taking part in the interview First, the researcher piloted the interview with one volunteer in three participants to find out inappropriate questions and collect more realistic insights from the visually impaired students Some opinions in terms of wording and the length of the interview were also taken into consideration Then the researcher eliminated unsuitable questions and changed some expressions to make the interview more comprehensible and logical

Concerning the procedure, the interview was conducted in up to 60 minutes The language used during the interviews will be Vietnamese The reason for that is to avoid misinterpretations and create an enjoyable atmosphere for both interviewers and interviewees All the interviews were recorded for later analysis under the agreement

of the interviewees Due to social distancing to avoid the spread of Covid-19 pandemic, the interviews were conducted online with three FELTE students instead

of conventional face-to-face interviews The online platforms chosen were Google

Meet and Messenger, which could be considered as good alternatives to face-to-face interview environment (Janghorban et al., 2014)

3.4.1.2 The reading comprehension test

Carroll (1968) defines a test as “a procedure designed to elicit certain behavior from which one can make inferences about certain characteristics of an individual”

In L2 research, tests are generally used to collect data about learners’ ability and knowledge of the L2 aspects such as vocabulary, listening, reading etc

To serve as a means for think-aloud protocol (TAP), a reading comprehension test including two parts was employed One passage is at level B2 and the other one

is at level C1 The total questions are 12, which ensures that the whole test will not last too long for the participants to finish The researcher chose the one passage from the First Certificate in English (FCE) and one from Certificate in Advanced English (CAE) by Cambridge This is because they are popular tests that have been used widely to test B2 and C1 level of proficiency, which served the purpose of the researcher and were suitable with the capability of three participants

Below is the summary of features of the reading comprehension test

delivered to the participants:

Table 3.2 Description of the reading comprehension test

Genre Article Article

Topic A woman who trains

actors in fighting skills

Introduction to a book about the history of

3.4.1.3 Think-aloud protocol

Besides in-depth interviews with the students, think-aloud protocol (TAP) was also conducted This is a method used to gather data in psychology and a range of social sciences such as reading, writing and translation research that has gained its popularity since the 80s (Ericsson & Simon, 1980)

According to Bohn (2019), TAP is beneficial in examining the mental processes that participants engage in The rich verbal reports can reveal direct thoughts, beliefs that naturally coming to their mind when conducting a learning task Through qualitative data, the researcher can get access to participants’ metacognitive thinking, which decides their actions in doing the task

In this study, TAP was conducted after in-depth interviews with participants to ensure the reliability of data collection More specifically, both retrospective think aloud protocol was adopted because visually impaired students could not listen to the JAWS and say aloud at the same time too much It distracted them from doing the task Therefore, retrospective think-aloud protocol happened after the concurrent think-aloud protocol to help them express more about their process The participants

were asked to tell about the reason for their choice of each answer and also their feelings when finishing the task

During concurrent think-aloud protocol, they were supported to verbalize whatever they were thinking as their thoughts naturally come to mind while reading and doing the test, such as answering the questions, commenting on language and the content of passages, difficulty of the task or saying whatever associated with them In case participants forgot to speak their mind or hesitated to share their thoughts, the researcher could ask them questions to gain more information

The data collection procedure for each participant is summarized in the diagram below:

Figure 3.1 Data collection procedure

3.5 Data analysis procedure and methods

Thematic Analysis

Data from both interviews and think-aloud protocol were analyzed using Thematic analysis The researcher also made use of the six phase thematic analysis procedure by Braun and Clark (2006) containing familiarizing with the data, generating initial codes, searching for the themes, reviewing the themes, defining and naming themes and last but not least, producing the report

The reason for using Thematic analysis is that it is one of the most common forms of analysis in qualitative research (Braun & Clark, 2006) Moreover, they stated that it would be beneficial in pinpointing, examining and recording patterns of meanings (themes)

Table 3.3 6 phases of thematic analysis procedure (Braun & Clarke, 2006)

Procedure of data analysis

The data analysis procedure included two stages At first stage, the researcher

analyzed metacognitive reading strategies of each case and factors affecting their

choice of strategies based on themes from the framework New themes were also open

to be found from the database The next stage occurred when the researcher compared

the similarities and differences among three cases with the themes detected in the first

stage

During the first stage, in order to identify the types of metacognitive strategies

employed by visually impaired students (i.e., answer research question 1), deductive

coding was employed The coding process was guided by O’Malley and Chamot’s

(1990) classification of learning strategies (see Table 3.1) In order to find the answer

to the second question (factors affecting the choices of strategies), inductive coding

was employed Specifically, the researcher started by identifying specific units of

meaning called initial codes, then grouped the initial codes into sub-categories,

categories, and then themes Table 3.2 provides an example of the coding process

Table 3.4 O’Malley and Chamot’s classification of

metacognitive reading strategies

Metacognitive

strategies

Thinking about the learning process, planning information, monitoring the learning task and evaluating how well one has started

Planning

Advance organizers Previewing the main ideas and concepts of the material to

be learned, often by skimming the text for the organizing principle

Directed attention Deciding in advance to attend in general to a learning task

and to ignore the irrelevant distracters

Selective attention Deciding in advance to attend to specific aspects of input,

often by scanning for key words, concepts and/or linguistic markers

Monitoring

Self-monitoring Checking one’s comprehension during listening or

reading or checking the accuracy and/or appropriateness

of one’s oral or written production while it is taking place

Evaluating

Self-evaluation Checking the outcomes of one’s own language against a

standard after it has been completed

Table 3.5 Examples of coding process

Advanced Organizing

Deductive Coding

Lily’s

interview

”The biggest problem is my vocabulary

Because there are too many new words, I have to stop to think many times.”

Lexical range

Inductive Coding

CHAPTER 4: FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION

In this chapter, the results of each case are illustrated followed by a cross-case analysis Findings from interviews and think-aloud protocol were compared and triangulated for discussion later

4.1 Question 1: What are the metacognitive strategies employed by visually impaired students in reading English?

Case 1: Moon - The advanced organizer

Moon showed a great combination of metacognitive strategy use in reading

English She was an advanced organizer, which is previewing the main ideas and

concepts of the material, often displayed by skimming the text for the organizing

principle To be specific, she claimed in the interview that she often started with

skimming to get an overview of the content and the layout of the text That helped her hold an impression of the length and the difficulty of comprehension, which was also proved during the reading task later

“I will read it quickly once to understand main ideas Oh you include space after each paragraph That’s good The passage is not too long.”

“This exercise is interesting because the heading and subheading can give some hints to me about the content.” (TAP 2)

The act of previewing the title, headings and skimming through the whole reading text happened naturally and compulsory because she could not distinguish among sections on the screen so the only way was to put the mouse cursor from top

to bottom and let JAWS software – a screen reading utility read it for the first time It should be noted that there are three kinds of adjusting the reading mode which are letter by letter, word by word and line by line At the beginning of the task, in

concurrent think-aloud data, it was observed that Moon always chose the line by line mode.

Moreover, right after skimming the reading text, she decided to read the questions to grab some key words before getting back to the passage

“Reading questions makes me focus more on the line containing key words and skip unimportant ones Otherwise it will take me a lot of time to surf.” (Interview 1)

She could flexibly use directed attention and selected attention by

identifying important words in each question such as the name of a place or a person then scrolling to its position in the paragraph Especially when encountering proper names, Moon often referred to Ctrl F, a hotkey in Word that helped her navigate target words immediately Most of the time, her coordination of two strategies were effective which was shown in the number of correct answers

“Question 5, I read about the sword fight I used Ctrl F to find “Play Richard” They think of “style and sequence” themselves.” (TAP 2)

In case the hotkey did not work, she would skim the text one more time and pay attention to sentences around the key words It could take her several times to

reread the text carefully She can be considered a constant and active planner when

repetitively employed these strategies during the think-aloud protocol session

“Question 4 asks me the implication of the phrase “no small order” in line

22 but I can’t find it through Ctrl F Maybe I mispelled a letter and the screen appeared “Not found” Therefore, I have to read all over again, of course I

do not know where line 22 is.” (TAP 2)

In addition, data from the interview also revealed her active planning when

she chose what to read based on her interest and she had a clear purpose in mind whenever she read

The participant also switched quickly among strategies, which proved her flexibility in using metacognitive reading strategies

“Fifth paragraph [Selective attention], at first I thought there were signal

words such as “first, second reason”, “fifth reason” was likely to be written

[Self-monitoring] so I searched for the word “fifth” [Directed Attention]

but it didn’t exist Then I guessed, I also omitted the clearly wrong answers

[Directed Attention]”

In the interview, she confirmed that linking words can be of great help for her to realize a new or contrasting idea, so she would pay more attention to them If the text included signpost words and phrases such as “first, second, third”, it would

be easier for her to keep track While from the retrospective recalls, there were a few times she made a guess among four answers and “randomly chose an uncertain one” which was incorrect, during the interview, she mentioned her random choice

of answers numerous times The reason behind it will be analyzed in discussion part

With regards to monitoring strategies, Moon could be regarded as a

conscious self-monitor when she stopped reading and considered whether she was

comprehending correctly

Furthermore, Moon made use of problem-solving strategy since she could

associate some fix-up strategies to assist her in better comprehension Besides scanning to find the exact key points in the text, she paraphrased words in the answers or read the surrounding sentences to understand the context

“Question 2, passage 2, I remembered I read three reasons There are signal words “first, second” so it was easy for me to find But I had to reread several times to understand I thought “documentation” referred to artifact and “not originally” was about reliability.” (TAP 2)

Moreover, recognizing her difficulties with reading on the laptop, she made some estimation when she could not navigate line 22 and line 30

“Line 22? Oh no Ok I searched for “no small order” Line 30, again…[moving the mouse cursor a few lines after line 22] 1, 2, 3, 4…” (TAP 1)

“I think I did not count correctly so I used Ctrl F to search for “it” in line

30 and only clicked on results showing after line 22.” (TAP 2)

Additionally, she often read some parts again for better understanding and tried to predict the meaning of unfamiliar words When the text became hard or after listening for the screen reader for a long time, she expressed her efforts to be more

concentrated on the text by reading aloud a few words or thinking: “Come on, get back to reading.” (Interview 1)

Last but not least, Moon always used self-evaluation strategy when she

expressed concern about the results in retrospective think-aloud session and was ready to see which answers were wrong She also tried to find exact ideas supporting key answers every time she practiced reading before the exam She assumed that would gradually improve her reading comprehension

“I know my reading skill is not really good, not to mention it is the worst in four skills Hence, I have to revise a lot and know why I couldn’t reach a higher result I’m preparing for VSTEP (Vietnamese Standardized Test of English Proficiency) and later I intend to take the IELTS (International English Language

Testing System) test, practicing and realizing my mistakes are crucial for me to do the tests effectively.” (Interview 1)

Case 2: Susan - an average planner

Through data from interviews and think-aloud protocol, Susan could be seen

However, in concurrent think-aloud protocol, what the researcher could observe was that Susan simply read the text slowly and carefully for 30 minutes before scrolling to the questions That, she said, was for the purpose of comprehending and remembering the content at most in one turn of reading

“I was just reading every detail to understand as much as possible.” (TAP 1)

After perceiving that she could keep in mind most of the passage, she started

answering the questions At that time, she employed selective attention and direct attention That finding information needed paying attention to and supporting ideas

leading to the answers took her quite a long time Her combination of two strategies

in planning, however, did not seem to be effective as she did not focus on key words

in the questions so when coming back to the text, she nearly reread everything despite the effort of finding relative parts to each question Another cause was she might not know the paraphrase of key words in two passages, especially with passage 2

In terms of self-monitoring strategy, Susan did stop to think about what she

was reading and the meaning of difficult words

“Wow there are a lot of new words here I don’t understand this part Let me read it again.” (TAP 1)

Susan could realize that her way of doing the test was not productive and mentioned this in both the interview and retrospective think-aloud protocol, but little

changes were made, which gave a slight use of self-monitoring She also searched

for key words or proper names by using Ctrl F for two or three times, however, when the results showed “not found”, she would reread the whole text from the beginning without quickly scanning throughout specific parts She also admitted her lack of changing strategies while reading In other words, she was not quite flexible in her use of strategies

“Actually I think I have no strategies I tried to read the questions first to orient

my way of finding the information, however sometimes I could not remember those Hence, I read the passage and made full use of my memory before approaching the questions.” (Interview 2)

“I usually read the whole passage until I can remember the content as a chain

of events Then I will answer questions by withdrawing information stored in

my memory It can be wrong, since I cannot recall everything When I had no idea about the questions, I would select options randomly.” (TAP 2)

Regarding self-evaluating strategies, Susan always had a habit of checking

answers with the key after finishing a task In fact, it was demonstrated clearly in the following extract