With regard to the first research question “How often do the students use the reported strategies in reading academic materials?”, the Descriptive statistics in SPSS version 15.0 was used to analyze the data from questionnaires. Accordingly, the frequencies of student’s use of reading strategies were revealed as follow.
4.1.1.1. The frequency of overall strategy use
Table 2 below showed the frequency of the use of overall strategies by 42 students.
Table 2. Frequency of overall strategy use
Strategy categories N Mean SD
Global Reading Strategies (GLOB) 42 3.23 58
Problem Solving Strategies (PROB) 42 3.46 59
Support Strategies (SUP) 42 3.08 59
It can be observed that among the three strategy categories, the PROB (M = 3.46, SD = .59) has the highest average frequency, followed by GLOB (M = 3.23, SD = .58) and
SUP (M = 3.08, SD = .59). According to the criteria of strategy use by Oxford and Burry-Stock (1995) (see 3.5), such frequency of strategy use is at moderate level.
Therefore, it is possible to say that students in FSD at HANU can be aware of strategies during reading process and their awareness is reflected moderately through their frequencies of overall strategy use.
To get more evidence about the frequency as well as the awareness of reading strategy use among students, the descriptive statistics of the frequency of individual strategy use help to get more details.
4.1.1.2. The frequency of individual strategy use
Table 3 reported the descriptive statistics for the detailed frequency of individual strategy use. As Table 3 shown, the mean of individual strategy items ranged from a high of 4.07 to a low of 2.02. Among 28 strategies, 9 strategies (32%) fell into the high usage level (M > 3.5), 18 strategies (64%) went to medium level (M > 2.5), and only 1 strategy (4%) fell into low level (M < 2.4). The details were as follow.
To begin with, among 9 highest usage strategies, 5 strategies were found under the PROB category including “Re-reading for better understanding” (M = 4.07), “Trying to stay focused on reading” (M = 3.71), “Guessing meaning of unknown words” (M = 3.64), “Adjusting reading rate” (M = 3.57) and “Reading slowly and carefully” (M = 3.50). Followed by the GLOB category with 3 strategies namely “Previewing the text before reading” (M = 3.69), “Predicting or guessing text meaning” (M = 3.52) and
“Using prior knowledge” (M = 3.50). Only the strategy of “Underlining information in the text” (M = 4.02) was under SUP category.
With the above descriptions, it is easily noted that the distance of the mean between the highest frequent used strategy (M-= 4.07) and the lowest frequent used strategy (M = 3.50) in this group is only 0.50 and the gaps among other strategies are very little. This may assume that these strategies are very helpful for students when reading and students can be clearly aware of how to use them effectively.
Next, with the group of medium-level usage strategies, it is easily noticed that the GLOB category dominates with 10 strategies namely “Using context clues” (M = 3.45),
“Using typographical aids” (M = 3.43), “Setting purpose for reading” (M = 3.38),
“Determining what to read” (M = 3.26), “Confirming predictions” (M = 3.17),
“Resolving conflicting information” (M = 3.14), “Noting text characteristics” (M = 3.00), “Using text features” (M = 2.95), “Checking how the text contents fits purpose”
(M = 2.93) and “Evaluating what is read” (M = 2.76). Followed by 6 strategies under SUP category such as “Using reference materials” (M = 3.40), “Thinking about information in English and mother tongue” (M = 3.36), “Taking note while reading” (M 3.29), “Going back and forth in the text” (M = 3.07), “Translating from English to mother tongue” (M = 2.86) and “Paraphrasing for better understanding” (M = 2.64).
While, the PROB category provided only two strategy items with “Visualizing information read” (M = 2.90) and “Pausing and thinking about reading” (M = 2.83).
Obviously, there are two levels of frequency of strategy use in this group. The first ones are strategies under the mean of 3.00 (M = 2.64 to M = 2.95) and the others are the ones which above the mean of 3.00 (M = 3.00 to M = 3.45). Most of the strategies with the mean above 3.00 belong to the category of GLOB. This indicates students who use GLOB strategies more often than other strategies may be aware of how to manage or how to make plan when reading. For example, they may be conscious of finding the clues to understand the text (Using context clues, M = 3.45) or they can decide what they should read or not (Determining what to read, M = 3.26).
Finally, only strategy “Asking oneself question” (M = 2.02) of SUP category falls into the lowest-level usage. This can be explained that this strategy may not be helpful for students to deal with reading task, therefore, they are nearly ignore it or less aware of it than other strategies (Malcolm, 2009).
Table 3. Frequency of individual strategy use
Item | _ Strategy Category Mean SD_ |
| __ Global Reading Strategies
| _1__| Setting purpose 3.38 99
| 2 | Previewing the text _ 3.69 1.05
3 | Checking purpose | 293 | I1ữ7 -
_ 4 _| Noting text characteristics ơ 3.00 .91
__5__| Determining what to read 3.26 1.08
| 6 | Using text features " 2.95 132
7__| Using context clues 3.45 1.06
_ 8 Using typographical aids 3.43 1.42
9 _| Predicting or guessing 3.52 1.06
| 10 | Confirming predictions 3.17 1.25
11 | Resolving 3.14 1.16
12 | Evaluating what is read 2.76 98
13 _| Using prior knowledge 3.50 1.15
Problem Solving Strategies
14 _| Reading carefully 3.50 107.
15 __| Try to stay focused on reading 3.71 1.09
| 16 | Adjusting reading rate 357 .97
17 | Re-reading for understanding 4.07 .87
18 | Guessing unknown words 3.64 1.08
| 19 | Pausing and thinking 2.83 1.12
20 | Visualizing information read 2.90 1.14
| Support Strategies
21__| Taking note while reading 3.29 1.27
22 _| Underlining information _} — 4.02 1.02
| 23 _| Using reference materials 3.40 99
24 _| Paraphrasing 2.64 1.27
| 25 | Going back and forth in the text 3.07 1.22
26 _| Asking oneself question 2.02 99
27 _| Translating 2.86 1.34
28 | Thinking in both languages 3.36 1.17
In addition, the findings from the Descriptive statistics also indicated top five strategies that were most favored by the students. Table 4 below showed details.
Table 4. Top five strategies
No Top five strategies Mean sD
| Re-reading for better understanding 4.07 .87
2 Underlining information in the text 4.02 ; 1.02
3 Try to stay focused on reading 3.71 1.09
4 Previewing the text before reading 3.69 1.05
5 Guessing meaning of unknown words 3.64 1.08
As can be easily seen from Table 4, the strategies were disposed in order with top usage strategy falling into “Re-reading for better understanding” (M = 4.07, SD = .87) and
“Underlining information in the text” (M = 4.02, SD = 1.02), followed by “Try to stay focused on reading” (M = 3.71, SD = 1.09), “Previewing the text before reading” (M = 3.69, SD = 1.05) and “Guessing meaning of unknown words” (M = 3.64, SD = 1.08).
The explanations for that preferable choice of students can be made as follow.
First, students who espoused their favorite with strategies such as “Re-reading for better understanding”, “Try to stay focused on reading” and “Guessing meaning of unknown words” indicated that they were generally conscious of their comprehension process and were able to take actions when comprehension breaks down. For example, when losing concentration, they “Tried to stay focused on reading”. When a text became difficult, they “re-read to increase understanding” or “guessed meaning of unknown words”.
Second, students who were interested in “underlining information in the text” when dealing with reading task showed their ability to utilize possible aids to enhance understanding and memorizing.
Finally, it is possible to say that while displaying ability to detect comprehension, students also demonstrated their capacity of planning for reading when espousing the prime choice with the strategy of “Previewing the text before reading”.
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4.1.1.3. Summary
In summary, the findings for the first research question in this study show a moderate awareness of reading strategy use by FSD students. This was proven by the frequencies of using strategies among students with the most preference was PROB strategies followed by GLOB strategies and SUP strategies. The details of students’ frequencies of individual strategy use further demonstrate that students in FSD can be aware of all strategies and they can manage them or use them frequently in different contexts during reading process. Among these kinds of strategies, top five strategies were found to be the most preferred choice to students and were supposed to affect to students’ reading comprehension. This therefore leads to the following section discussing about the differences in reading strategy use among high reading ability students and low reading ability students.