Critical Review Paper

NURUL SA’DAH BINTI SAIPULDIN

mp 132070

CRITICAL REVIEW PAPER

Abraham, Lee B. (2007). Second Language Reading Comprehension and Vocabulary Learning with Multimedia. Hispani, Vol 90(1), 98-108.

Mostow, J., Jessica N.-T., & Joseph E. B. (2013). Computer Guided Oral Reading Versus Independent Practice: Comparison of Sustained Silent Reading to An Automated Reading Tutor That Listens. J. Educational Computing Research, Vol 49(2), 249-276.

1.0Introduction

In the era of knowledge that can be reach within the tip of fingers and stroke on keyboards, many teachers and students evolve from chalk and talk in classrooms to the world of IT or information technology. Vast sources available for them to choose make learning process as flexible as any can ever imagined. Development of software to assist learning as well as emerging learning website offer students infinite opportunities for them to explore and learn. Many researches were conducted especially in the Computer Assisted Language Learning (CALL) field focusing in reading skills to encourage continuous understanding of students’ interactions with multimedia and technology (Bernhardt, 2003). Reading skills are important as such it opens the opportunity for the students to learn better.

Abraham (2007) conducted a study at a large university in the Southwestern of United States. The objective of the study is to understand how students (whom are fluent in English but not non-native speakers of Spanish) utilize multimedia resources while reading Spanish text. There are seven major headings to guide the readers to understand his research. After Introduction, he lays some Review of Literature which include ample details of explanation on Multimedia Glosses in which he presents several researches on strategies and techniques for enhancing comprehension and facilitating vocabulary with authentic text. He also provides Theoretical Framework underpinning his study in the Review of Literature heading. Next, in Method, he includes Participants and Design, Materials, Tasks and Procedure as sub headings. Fourth major heading is Results, followed by Discussion, Limitations and lastly Conclusions. There are no software used in the study but Abraham uses multiple combinations of multimedia glosses as treatments in his study.

Mostow, Jessica and Joseph (2013) investigated a comparison of Computer-Guided Oral Reading Versus Independent Practice (Sustained Silent Reading) in improving various reading ability and skills. Their paper is divided into six sections which starts with explanation on Guided Oral Reading and then, the explanation on The Computer-Guided Oral Reading (The Reading Tutor), which they break it down further into two sub headings namely Automation/Scalability Features and Instructional Principles. The third section is Study Design followed by Results. Before the Discussion section, they have a section with heading Relation to Other Work and for the last section, they put Appendix which include tutorials interventions and details on six Types of Steps comprised the activities and interventions in the 2000-2001 version of The Reading Tutor. These six sections provided a clear path for the readers to follow through on what has been done, how the study is carried out and the discussions prompt by the results gained from the study.

This paper aims to provide critical review by summarising both articles, discussing on the strengths and weaknesses and finally comparing and contrasting both articles. Abraham’s (2007) article will be referred as Article 1 and Article 2 is the paper written by Mostow, Jessica and Joseph (2013).

2.0Summary of Both Articles

This section will summarise in brief both articles which include the aims and objectives of the research, the type of research, the research instruments, the participants involved, the procedure and lastly the findings.

2.1Summary of Article 1

Abraham (2007) aims in carrying out this study is to understand how students use multimedia resources while reading an authentic Spanish text. He provides two research questions to be addressed, 1)do students who read an authentic text in Spanish with pictorial and written annotations learn more vocabulary words than those students required to look up all information provided in every annotated word or than students who do not have access to annotations?, and 2)do students who read an authentic text in Spanish with pictorial and written annotations learn more main ideas than those students required to look up all information provided in every annotated word or than students who do not have access to annotations?.

This is an experimental research as it has pretest-posttest control group whereby the participants are randomly assigned to one of the following groups, 1) control group, 2) choice lookup, or 3) force lookup. The vocabulary posttest was the same as the pretest, except that the order of items on the posttest was changed to pprevent carry over effect. The participants read a 1012 word version of Gregorio Lopez y. Fuentes’s Una carta a Dios in Ciberteca (Chunn and Plass, 1998) with eighty five glossed vocabulary words and phrases. Then, they completed two tasks, Vocabulary Pretest and Posttest and Summary (recall Protocol). The research is carried out at a large university in the Southwestern of United States with 102 students participate in the study whereby 61 students are females and 41 are males. They are in their third semester intermediate level Spanish course.

Participants in the forced lookup condition looked up every piece of information for the 85 words with annotations (i.e., Spanish definitions, English translations, pictures, and videos). In addition, for the participants in the choice look up condition, they can freely looked up any of the verbal or visual information for all 85 annotated words but the participants in the control group read the story in the multimedia environment without being able to use any of the glosses. The study consumed two fifty-minute sessions in a computer lab during their regular class schedule. On the first day, after they submitted the letter of consent, they were given ten minutes to complete the vocabulary test and three minutes demonstration on how to select and activated all available annotations. After that,the participants had thirty minutes to read the story. On the next day. Ten minutes were allocated for the participants to complete the vocabulary posttest and another ten minutes to write a summary of the story in English.

MANCOVA was conducted to adjust any prior knowledge of vocabulary and ANCOVA is conducted to find the effect of treatment group on the vocabulary posttest and summary. Based on the results, the participants performed significantly better on a productive vocabulary and on a summary when they were able to look up annotated words and when they were required to use multimedia sources. However, they might experience cognitive overload while reading because they devoted limited resources of short term memory to trying to understand the text.

2.2Summary of Article 2

Mostow, Jessica and Joseph (2013) conducted a 7-month study of 178 students in Grade 1-4 at two Blue Ribbon schools to compare two daily 20-minute treatments. The study objective is to investigate the effects of computer guided oral reading in students learning to read in their native language (English) on a variety of reading measures. This was an experimental research whereby the procedure when assigningthe participants for treatment was systematic and computerized (when determining the pair) but did not prescribe selection criteria in deciding which students should participate in the study. The 2000-2001 Reading Tutor, a software develop to help upgrading Reading skills is used as treatment. For each pair of participants, one was assigned to Sustained Silent Reading (SSR) and the other was under The Reading Tutor treatment. For the students who not yet able to read or willing to read independently, SSR included teacher’s reading aloud. A daily 20-25 minutes are reserved for SSR purpose and during the same time, the participants under The Reading Tutor were in the computer lab and a school-provided monitor escorted and supervised them there. The Reading Tutor itself trained students how to operate it, took turns with students to decide what to read next based on the estimated students’ reading level and it adjusted automatically based on assisted reading rate as a rough indicator of oral reading fluency. The participants are initially 193 students but only 178 students completed the study. Out of 178. 55 of them are special needs students. By definition, they are the one who learned more slowly and read more poorly. The pretest and posttest scores were collected for the following tests; 1) Comprehensive Test of Phonological Process (CTOPP) and 2) Woodcock Reading Mastery Test (WRMT). As a result, two groups of students matched on their Total Reading Composite scores from WRMT. These students were pre-tested and post-tested on a variety of reading measures. As conclusion, in no case did SSR group outperform The Reading Tutor group.

3.0Strengths of Both Articles

3.1Strengths of Article 1

3.1.1Letter of Consent

This is among the important element to have when conducting a research as the letter of consent signify the participants giving authority for the researcher to use any part of the data collected to be analyse without having to worry getting sue because of it.

3.1.2Participants for related course

As the study required the use of authentic Spanish text, the researcher selected the students from the related course, which is Spanish course to help the researcher to conduct the experiment and thus provide valid result.

3.1.3Theoretical Framework

The study was developed with The Generative Theory of Multimedia Learning as the underpinning theoretical framework. This framework guides the researcher so as not to divert and always unbiased when conducting the study.

3.1.4Valid and clear

Despite of only a seven-pages research article, the researcher writes the paper clearly which makes it easier for the readers even from the outside of the education circle, to understand and make sense of what the researcher trying to convey. For example, he elaborates clearly the annotations needed and used in this study i.e Spanish definitions, English translation, pictures and videos.

3.2Strength of Article 2

3.2.1The Reading Tutor

The use of this software as a treatment for the students to improve their reading is smart. In addition, the software is self-explanatory and this somehow gives the students the power of self-empowerment and motivate them to use the software.

3.2.2Reading Skills explain in details

The researcher are able to appoint various measures in reading skills by using Comprehensive Test of Phonological Process (CTOPP) and Woodcock Reading Mastery Test (WRMT). Each of the reading measures are explained in details to provide clear insight whether the use of The Reading Tutor software bring benefits towards improving reading skills.

4.0Weaknesses of Both Articles

4.1Weaknesses Article 1

4.1.1Effectiveness of the tasks assign

Among the objective of the study is to see whether there is improvement in the reading comprehension, but I don’t think writing a summary of the Spanish text provide enough information whether the students really understand the text or not.

4.2Weaknesses Article 2

4.2.1Time Consuming

This study is a 7-month long study which is very time consuming. As we all knows, time costs money, hence if other researchers want to carry out similar study at their location, they need to plan carefully and reconsider as well as reconstruct the research plan.

5.0Similarities and differences between Both Articles

5.1Similarities

Both articles are experimental research with pretest and postest results. The researchers in both articles also administered ANCOVA and MANCOVA to further affirm their results of experiment. Both Studies also constitute a mixture of males and females as their participants although both had different age range of participants.

5.2Differences

In term of time needed to conduct the research, Article 1 showed that the study only took two days to complete, however Article 2 needed seven months to complete. If looking at the treatments or tasks (which later be evaluated by the researchers), the task given by Abraham (2007) to his participants are much easier to administer to compare with the treatments given by Mostow, Jessica and Joseph (2013) to their participants. In addition, there were multiple reading measures to be investigated by them.

6.0Conclusion

Although the articles have their own strengths and weaknesses, both are actually give good insights on the improvement of Reading Skills through CALL. The Reading Tutor software especially is a very good software for the students to have in order to assist them in improving their reading skills. As conclusion, hopefully the teachers and all educators involve can adopt or adapt the information provided by both articles to enhance their teaching practices.

REFERENCES

Abraham, Lee B. (2007). Second Language Reading Comprehension and Vocabulary Learning with Multimedia. Hispani, Vol 90(1), 98-108.

Bernhardt, Elizabeth B. (2003). Challenges to Reading Research from a Multilingual World. Reading Research Quarterly, Vol 38, 112-117.

Bernice, E.C. (2000). Independent Reading and School Achievement. School Library Media Research, Vol 3, 1-24.