Browsing by Author "Zainurin Abdul Rahman, Ph.D"

Inference-making skills are crucial for reading comprehension. They represent the ability to combine explicit information from the text with background knowledge or experiences to build a coherent representation of intended meaning. Inferencing is seen by many researchers as the heart of the comprehension process, and therefore failure to teach it properly may contribute to students' failure in reading comprehension. However, Omani EFL students are still facing many challenges affecting their reading comprehension, including a lack of background knowledge, a limited repertoire of reading strategies, and a poor ability to infer meaning from written text. Empirical observations also show that teachers lack knowledge and skills to build students’ inferencing ability adequately. Building on this, a mixed-method study sought to conduct an in-depth exploration of the perceptions and practices in the Omani EFL context in order to have empirical data on post-basic education teachers’ perceptions and instructional practices when dealing with inference-making in reading lessons. Also, the study aimed at investigating the challenges teachers face when developing inference-making ability among students. In addition, the study aimed at exploring the extent to which curriculum and assessment facilitate the development of students’ inference-making ability. The data were collected through different instruments: a questionnaire, an observation checklist, and a semi-structured interview. Also, the data were collected from two primary informants; EFL teachers and specialists of curriculum and assessment. Quantitative data were collected through a questionnaire and classroom observations. So, the questionnaire was administered to Omani EFL teachers in post-basic schools and received 324 responses. The classroom observation was limited to 10 EFL teachers from Batinah North and Batinah South governorates. Each teacher was observed during two reading lessons, for a total of twenty reading lessons. Qualitative data were collected through semi-structured interviews with the same EFL teachers and two specialists from the curriculum and assessment Departments. The findings mainly show that Omani EFL teachers hold a good understanding of the relationship between students’ comprehension skills and inference-making ability and of the importance of inference-making. However, they had very limited knowledge of the best ways to teach and assess students’ inference ability. Also, they have a narrow view of explicit reading instruction and lack a common definition of inference. These findings revealed a discrepancy between teachers' stated perceptions and observed practices. A limited number of strategies were used to develop students’ inference-making ability when building meaning from reading texts. Also, the study revealed challenges regarding the implementation of inference-making instruction during reading lessons. These challenges include the lack of explicit instructions in the teacher's guide on implementing inference-making strategy, the difficulty of some reading text, and students’ low level of language proficiency that makes it difficult to teach them advanced skills like inferencing. Participants attributed their lack of awareness of implementing inference-making strategy systematically to the lack of training. Based on the challenges, the teachers reported some useful suggestions that may improve the current situation. The study also provides some directions for policymakers, curriculum developers, supervisors, and teachers to improve the current situation.

Covid-19 is an unprecedented situation resulting to abrupt changes being made from conventional teaching and learning to online distance learning. Educators are forced to adapt to the changes by making classroom as authentic as possible for online learning. Corrective feedback is still very significant for language learning specially to adapt to the aspect of writing in classroom. This present study aims to explore students’ performances and preferences towards method of corrective feedback given to them. Experimental design was carried out between control group and experimental group who received online corrective feedback and conventional corrective feedback respectively. Comparison was made between two groups of 48 students to study whether corrective feedback given was effective in assisting them to produce better writing draft. This study found that students who received conventional corrective feedback performed better than students who received online corrective feedback. It has also been found that students’ opinion and preferences are significantly different based on the method of corrective feedback given to them. Interestingly, the result showed that online corrective feedback is least effective for students in this study thus further improvement should be made in future considering that we are still amidst pandemic with no guarantee to end soon.

The assessment reform around the world has culminated in the adoption of various assessment systems that focus on student learning, and in the case of higher Malaysia, Outcome Based Assessment (OBA) was adopted. Since OBA was claimed to be an effective system to enhance student learning, it is interesting to note that learning may be debilitated by poor assessment practices. Thus, the present study investigated how OBA has thus far influenced student learning and their learning outcomes by means of sequential exploratory mixed methods with item development. Specifically, this study investigated the intended and unintended washback of an OBA, i.e., Integrated Language Skills III test battery, focusing on its washback effect on students’ learning and learning outcomes. A survey named WOLOS was developed and validated by means of qualitative (semi-structured interview) and quantitative analysis (Item Objective Congruence (IOC) and Rasch Measurement Model). Drawing on an argument-based validation approach, i.e., Assessment Use Argument (AUA), the evidence about the washback effect of Integrated Language Skills III test battery were linked to construct validity. To better understand how the students experienced Integrated Language Skills III test battery, students who have taken this test battery were selected as the participants of this study. Document analysis, semi-structured interviews, focus group discussion and survey data were collected. The document analysis provides information on the intended washback of Integrated Language Skills III test battery. Semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions involving 22 students were analysed using NVivo12, by means of phenomenology approach. Rasch Measurement Model was employed to analyse the survey data from 309 respondents. A range of factors were found to have mediated the intended washback, both positively and negatively. In short, it was found that Integrated Language Skills III test battery brought about more positive washback owing to its 10 years of implementation. Further directions may involve studies which include various stakeholders’ perspectives to perceive the consequences of a test and focusing on the impact of technology in teaching and learning.