An Investigation into the Relatioship among Reading Strategy Use, Reading Anxiety and Performance in Reading: With Particular Reference to EFL Students in Ethiopian Universities
No Thumbnail Available
Date
2019-05
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Addis Ababa University
Abstract
The purpose of the study was to investigate the relationship among EFL learners’ status ofreading strategy use, reading anxiety, and performance in reading. The subjects were 130 students who were majoring in English at B.A level in four universities in the Tigrai regionalstate of Ethiopia. Descriptive-correlational research designs which contained both quantitative and qualitative data were employed in this study. The quantitative data werecollected throughquestionnaires, and reading test, while the qualitative data were collectedusing interview. Descriptive statistics were applied to describe students’ present status ofreading strategy use, reading anxiety, and reading performance; while the inferentialstatistics were used to examine the correlations between the variables. Theresultsshowedthat the EFL learners were found to have medium level of English language reading anxiety,and they read English texts in academiccontexts for understanding; however, the students hadlowlevelofreadingperformance.Moreimportantly, the results of the study revealed that the students’ reading anxietyappeared to have a strong significant negative correlation with their overall reading strategyuse. In the same way, the result also indicated that the students’ English language readinganxiety had a significant moderate negative correlation with their reading comprehensionperformance. Nevertheless, in this study, statistically significant moderate positive correlationwas obtained between students’ overall reading strategy use and their readingcomprehension performance. On the other hand, the linear regression analysis indicated thatthe prediction of reading anxiety on students’ reading performance was moderate negativeand statistically significant, while the prediction of reading strategy use on students’ readingperformance was weak. It was also found that reading anxiety and reading strategy usetogether accounted 18.4% influence on students’ reading performance. The results alsoindicated that the cognitive reading strategies were found to be the most frequently used ones,while compensation reading strategies were the least usedstrategies. Unfamiliar culture ofEnglish, inadequate knowledge of grammar, new topics, unfamiliar words, lack of priorpreparations, reading without purpose, lack of knowledge andpracticeofthedifferent typesof reading strategies, worry about the reading effect of English, lack of motivation,humiliationbyteachersandbyclasssmates,negativeattitudeofstudents towards English,and their poor academic background were identified bythestudentsasthemajorsourcesoftheirEnglish language reading anxiety, and the causes for their reading comprehension
problems. Based on the results, limitations, pedagogical implications and further studies have
been forwarded.
Key Words: Reading Strategy Use; Reading Anxiety; Reading Performance
Description
Keywords
Reading anxiety