An Investigation of Secondary School Students’ Reading Engagement in EFL Reading Classes: The Case of Grade 9 Classes
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Date
2025-05-07
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Addis Ababa University
Abstract
This study investigated Ethiopian secondary school students’ reading engagement in EFL reading classes. It specifically examined the correlation between the aspects of students’ reading engagement, namely, strategy, motivation, and behavior and reading achievement. It also identified whether these aspects of reading engagement together can predict reading achievement. In addition, the study explored the students’ level of reading engagement in terms of the three dimensions. Furthermore, it described the major reasons that influence the students’ reading engagement when they read various texts in English. A total of two hundred and thirty (230) students from Basso General Secondary School participated in the study. Employing the pragmatic paradigm, the constructivist phillosophy and a mixed methods research design, the study utilized questionnaires, reading achievement test, interviews as well as classroom observation to collect the relevant data. The quantitative data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS, Version 25) program while the qualitative data were analyzed employing qualitative data analysis techniques. Then, the findings of the research revealed that Basso General Secondary School students’ reading engagement was associated
with their reading achievement. Each aspect of reading engagement (reading strategy, reading motivation, and reading behavior) had statistically significant (p<0.05) correlation with the students’ reading achievement. The findings also disclosed that reading engagement aspects in combination were significant predictors of students’ reading achievement (R2 =.129, p <0.05). Besides, reading strategy was the best significant and independent predictor of reading
achievement (β=0.362, p < 0.05) while motivation and behavior were not statistically significant predictors of students’ reading achievement (β=0.011, p > 0.05; β=0.025, p > 0.05) respectively. Regarding their level of engagement, the students employed reading strategies with moderate frequency when they read texts in EFL reading classes, and they use support strategies most frequently. While the participants were found to be less motivated readers in English
reading lessons, they were mainly motivated to read for extrinsic reasons. Furthermore, the findings revealed that the students were less frequent readers, and most of the time, they read academic texts while they rarely read nonacademic texts. Finally, revealing that the students’had low reading engagement, the findings indicated that the major reasons that influence grade 9 students’ reading engagement were students’ poor language proficiency, social media, lack of motivation, absence of access to authentic materials, socioeconomic issues, and their English language teachers. Considering the findings of the study, implications, conclusions and recommendations have been forwarded.