The objective of this research is to determine the competences of students of Basic Spanish Language II (Let. 012) in the comprehension of the superstructure and macrostructure of expository texts, in two college Campuses; the UASD San Francisco de Macorís Campus, and the UASD Bonao Campus for the semester 2015-2. The theory is based on the…

This exploratory study investigated the effects of modifying eighth grade students' purposes for reading through a prompt designed to increase engagement with the text. The current study was conducted using a randomized between-subjects design, with a relevance prompt as the between-subjects factor and reader proficiency as a covariate. A sample…

Drawing on cognitive theories, this study intends to investigate the effects of explicit visual cues which have been proposed as a critical factor in facilitating understanding of biological images. Three diagrams from Taiwanese textbooks with implicit visual cues, involving the concepts of biological classification systems, fish taxonomy, and…

The purpose of the present study is to examine whether performance on the "TOEFL iBT"® Reading practice test is affected by 3 different levels of feedback provided to learners upon completion of reading exercises: (a) correctness of learner response (the knowledge of correct results [KCR] feedback), (b) KCR feedback and rationales for…

This paper reports on an investigation into the relationship of test-takers' use of test-wiseness strategies to Chinese EFL learners' reading test performance. A test-wiseness questionnaire was administered immediately after the final achievement test to probe into how learners thought while completing the reading section of the test. It was found…

This study aims to investigate the extent to which reading comprehension and learning styles are related to perceived use of reading strategies among students studying French at an Australian university and a Turkish university. Ninety-one participants completed a background questionnaire, the Survey of Reading Strategies, the Kolb Learning Style…

The authors investigated the mediating effects of general academic and science-specific vocabulary on science reading comprehension among English learners (ELs) of varied proficiency. The sample included 169 regular education Grade 7 students (86 current ELs; 83 former ELs) enrolled in 1 urban school in Pacific Northwest region of the United…

Few findings were noted on the effects of blogs specifically on English as a foreign language (EFL) reading comprehension. However, those studies did not address the effect of blogs on reading comprehension in the Turkish EFL context. Thus, this study aims to investigate the effects of the use of blogs on reading comprehension among Turkish EFL…

This study gathered quantitative and qualitative evidence concerning gender differences in performance by using critical reading material on the "SAT"® test with sports and science content. The fundamental research questions guiding the study were: If sports and science are to be included in a skills test, what kinds of material are…

The present study examined the impact of an intensive reading fluency intervention on the overall reading performance of 37 struggling readers in 3rd grade. Students' 3rd-grade classroom teachers and/or their performance on a state-mandated reading achievement test given toward the end of the 3rd-grade school year identified them for the study.…

This study aimed to examine the effects of different text difficulty levels on foreign language reading anxiety (FLRA) and reading comprehension of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) learners. To this end, 50 elementary EFL learners were selected from two intact classes (n = 25 each). Each class was assigned to a text difficulty level (i.e.,…

The study reported here investigates the validity of judgments made when aligning tests to the "Common European Framework of Reference" (CEFR). Listening tests operationalizing pre-defined difficulty-determining characteristics were to be aligned to CEFR levels. We employed a modified version of the item-descriptor-matching-method. Ten…

L2 vocabulary is commonly conceptualized in terms of a size or depth of one's total lexical knowledge and tested discretely with selection-type items. Concerns exist, however, regarding L2 users' ability to cope with unknown vocabulary, especially in the context of academic reading. This motivated the creation of a test which measures the ability…

Departing from Gonzales and Torres' (2015) quantitative quasi-experimental study on the effectiveness of cooperative learning (CL) on Grade 8 students in a private school in Manila, the present study attempts to uncover possible findings in the affective dimension through a 25-item survey questionnaire that quantitatively gauges the Grade 8…

Departing from Gonzales and Torres' (2015) quantitative quasi-experimental study on the effectiveness of cooperative learning (CL) on Grade 8 students in a private school in Manila, the present study attempts to uncover possible findings in the affective dimension through a 25-item survey questionnaire that quantitatively gauges the Grade 8…