Purpose: The study aims to evaluate the readability, comprehensibility, and vocabulary knowledge of SRH educational materials available online and on paper to inform health educational material development for young adolescents. Design/methodology/approach: The study used a sequential mixed-method design. Thirty-four online and one print…

In web surveys, no interviewer is present to clarify question comprehension problems, which can be particularly prevalent among respondents with low literacy skills. Although plain language is used in various contexts to improve text comprehensibility, its use in social science questionnaires has not been investigated to date. Using a…

Facilitating anxiety in second language (L2) learning research has not been thoroughly discussed for both methodological and conceptual reasons. This trend is also evident in the field of L2 reading, where reading anxiety has been viewed as a negative force. This study takes the initial step to explore the nature of facilitating anxiety in L2…

Background: Cognitive and linguistic factors have been incorporated into models to explain reading comprehension beyond classical models of reading. This study explores the contribution of executive functions, mainly domain-general and reading-specific cognitive flexibility, in reading comprehension of science texts in monolingual Spanish speaking…

Academic language and its associations with school success have been established in many prior studies. However, the scholarship lacks research on the mechanisms that constitute these relations. This study investigates the mediating role of motivational-­affective variables, specifically reading self-concept and reading enjoyment, in relations…

This study assessed the metacognitive awareness of reading strategies of undergraduate university students in US and Qatar in reading academic materials. To achieve this, the participants were administered the Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory (MARSI). The inventory consists of three groups of reading strategies, namely…

This research explores the correlation of first-year Indonesian university students' metacognitive reading awareness and their reading comprehension in academic English texts. This study was conducted in a regional university in Yogyakarta - Indonesia where students came from many parts of Indonesia and recognised English as an additional…

Background: Many first-year students find the reading of academic texts to be challenging and overwhelming. In particular, first-year students studying sociology at the South African institution where the study was conducted complain of comprehension challenges. This may be due to the presence of numerous theoretical and abstract concepts in…

Given the significant global influence of the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages: Teaching, Learning, and Assessment (CEFR) on English language education, this study deals with aligning a university's academic reading tests to the CEFR. It aimed at validating the test construct of the academic reading tests in relation to the…

Although there have been extensive theoretical discussions on the various reading skills needed in academic situations, empirical investigations on this topic are scarce. There is even much less research on the latent structure underlying those skill needs. This study attempts to fill this gap by investigating the perceived factorial structure of…

The central foundation of knowledge is through grasping what is being read. Therefore, it is significant to recognise the difficulty level of a reading text for better and comprehensive understanding. The present study is an attempt to identify the word frequency level and lexical coverage of the Malaysian University English Test (MUET) reading…

A gloss refers to a short definition or explanation of the meaning of a word in a text that can assist learners in reading comprehension and vocabulary learning. This study aims to investigate how glosses in English academic texts affect the reading behaviour of ESL undergraduates while reading is taking place. In addition, it also examines the…

The phenomenological case study aimed to unearth the reasons that influence university students to plagiarize assignments. 67 participants were selected for semi-structured interviews, from the Faculty of Education of a public university, located in Karachi, Pakistan. The obtained data were analyzed through thematic analysis. Findings uncovered…

Whereas cognitive and linguistic factors for learning to read have been extensively studied, less is known about affective factors including children's attitudes toward reading. Studies primarily from English-speaking and Western countries show gradual declines in reading attitudes in elementary school (McKenna et al., Reading Research Quarterly…

Postulating that academic papers can positively impact the actual teaching practices of science teachers, this study analysed the process of understanding and utilising academic papers by science teachers to teach scientific creativity in their schools. The 45--hour graduate course of three science teachers was explored to identify the…