Effects of Science Reader Belief and Reading Comprehension on High School Students’ Science Learning via Mobile Devices

This research examines senior high school students’ earth science learning effects, focusing on the influence of science reading beliefs when employing mobile devices. The revision of the Science Reader Belief Inventory (SRBI) was used to examine the connections for high school students’ personal scientific reading beliefs and reading comprehension of earth science learning effectiveness conditions when using mobile devices to learn. The learning outcome was determined using achievement tests. In this research, 97 students from three classes of first-year high school students were enrolled in an eight-week experimental teaching study followed by an achievement test. The major findings are as follows: (1) High school students’ transaction beliefs were stronger than transmission beliefs. Transaction beliefs were significantly correlated with transmission beliefs. (2) Scientific beliefs may take a long time to change. (3) Whereas traditional reading comprehension strategies seem to have relied more heavily on vocabulary development, in an e-learning environment, students tend to rely on sentence-level parsing to understand scientific texts. This research provides a reference for teachers within learning environments in which information is incorporated into technology instruction, and various learning scenarios are used.

Parental Reading Beliefs and Children's Reading Performance

This study put its interest in investigating parental reading beliefs and children’s reading performance. It also sought to determine whether there is an association between parental reading beliefs and children’s reading performance. This research employed a quantitative research design and it used a quota sampling technique to select the respondents. A total of 30 parents from Sekolah Kebangsaan Sungai Pusu Kuala Lumpur answered a questionnaire about parental reading beliefs. The questionnaire used was adapted from a study by DeBaryshe and Binder (1994). In order to measure the children’s reading performance, the parents were asked to state their children’s comprehension marks towards the end of the questionnaire. The questionnaire consisted of five factors related to parental reading beliefs which were teaching efficacy, positive attitude, verbal participation, reading instruction and basic knowledge. The data collected was analysed using Pearson Correlation. The results showed that all the factors under parental reading beliefs had positive relationship with children’s reading performance except for one factor which was reading instruction. All of them were not significant and as this study was a preliminary study, hence the results should not be generalised due to number of reasons. Keywords: Parents, reading beliefs, reading performance, primary school, quantitative research

Expanding Meaningfulness: Perceptions and Strategy Use of Chinese International Graduate Students in Disciplinary Reading

This qualitative case study explored two Chinese international graduate students’ beliefs about their reading and reading processes. The researcher interviewed the participants, asked them to read aloud, analyzed their reading using miscue analysis, and then discussed their reading with them using retrospective miscue analysis (RMA). The researcher found that readers’ beliefs were not static and text difficulty influenced the students’ reading beliefs and strategy use. Through RMA, both students became aware of their respective reading processes and they both became more confident as readers. This study suggests that RMA is an effective tool for English-as-an-additional language graduate students, as it helps in the construction of meaning and the improvement of disciplinary literacy skills.

Epistemological and reading beliefs profiles and their role in multiple text comprehension

Introducción. El ojetivo de este estudio fue analizar el papel de las creencias epistemológicas y de lectura en la comprensión de multiples textos que presentan posiciones contradictorias sobre un tema controvertido (la energía nuclear). En concreto, se investigó la influencia de la configuración multidimensional de creencias epistemológicas y de lectura en la comprensión de múltiples textos.Método. En el estudio participaron 476 estudiantes universitarios de dos universidades españolas y de distintas titulaciones (Humanidades, Ciencias de la Salud, Arquitectura e Ingeniería). Durante una clase se aplicó el Epistemological Beliefs Questionnaire (EQEBI) y el Reader Belief Questionnaire. En la siguiente, los participantes contestaron el cuestionario de conocimiento previo y realizaron la tarea de comprensión a partir de múltiples textos.Resultados. Se identificaron dos perfiles de creencias a través de un análisis de cluster: sofisticado, en el que las creencias epistemológicas sofisticadas están asociadas con creencias sobre la lectura más transaccionales y con las menos transmisivas; e ingénuo, en el que las creencias epistemológicas más ingenuas están asociadas con creencias sobre la lectura menos trasaccionales y con las más transmisivas. Se encontraron relaciones entre los perfiles y el género y el dominio de conocimiento. Los resultados muestran también que, una vez controlado el conocimiento previo, los estudiantes con creencias epistemológicas y de lectura más sofisticadas obtienen mejores resultados en la tarea de comprensión a partir de múltiples textos que aquellos que responden a un perfil ingenuo.Conclusion. Según los resultados, que coinciden con los de otros estudios, interpretaríamos que los estudiantes que conciben el conocimiento de una manera más sofisticada tienden a considerar la lectura menos como un proceso transmisivo y más como una transformación del conocimiento; por ello realizan una comprensión más profunda de las diferentes fuentes y esto favorece su capacidad de procesar información y hacer inferencias –en un nivel tanto inter como intra textual.