Access Type

Open Access Dissertation

Date of Award

January 2018

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Ph.D.

Department

Instructional Technology

First Advisor

Monica W. Tracey

Abstract

This dissertation examined the effects of the inferencing reading strategy using a emotionally charged instruction for students from countries who do not speak English as their first language. A quasi-experimental study applying quantitative research methods to collect data from the two sections of Level four Reading classes during a ten week period in the fall of 2017. There was one session of instructor coaching which lasted for four hours, a shared google document and several hours of telephone conversations. Lastly, the research observed four class sessions for the experimental group only. Students completed a pretest and a demographic survey in the first week of class in both the experimental group and the control group. The two section continued on with the experimental group being directly and explicitly being instructed on the inferencing strategy. In the tenth week of class both groups were given posttest and a Course Interest Survey.

The sample for this study were both graduate and undergraduate international students who English was not their first language at Lawrence Tech University. Students in the control group were taught the class the exact way it has been taught for several years using the lesson plans designed by the teachers and publishers of the books used in the class. However, for the experimental group the same plan was used accept for the last thirty minutes of class the instructor incorporated the inferencing strategy as content and used motivational strategy design to motivate students to learn and use what they learned to improve their placement scores.

Findings from the study showed that students in the experimental group did improve over the control group. The quantitative data showed a significance in the posttest as compared to the pretest in the experimental group and at the same time when comparing both groups’ posttests there was an improvement in the experimental group over the control group.

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