Enhancing Palestinian students` reading comprehension skills : adoption of M-active learning pedagogy

Abstract

Readers have to use different comprehension strategies in order to understand reading texts. The application of these reading strategies, however, is not limited to the classroom. The strategies are also applied when reading online. The available online materials and software have also attracted researchers to use the Internet to actively develop their students’ comprehension strategies. However, there is a lack of research on the attributes of successful online virtual courses. This study adopted a Virtual-Class (VC) pedagogy to find out whether an m-active (Mobile and Active) learning pedagogy can enhance learners’ reading comprehension skill. Since there are many challenges in implementing and supporting a VC pedagogy, there is a need to provide technical support and training courses to ensure the success of the implementation of this technology in enhancing reading comprehension. The major question of the study which summarizes all sub-questions is: To what extent does adopting an m-active learning pedagogy promote students’ reading comprehension strategies? These strategies comprise evaluation, summarization, previewing, visualization, vocabulary knowledge, prediction, questioning and answering. A sample of 60 male students from the ninth grade was selected from a United Nations Refugee school at Jerusalem district in Palestine. Quasi-experimental design was adopted in this study. The University College of Educational Sciences Standardized Test was used as the main instrument for measuring the different reading comprehension strategies. The results of the post-test were triangulated with checklists used in online classroom observation and results of six focus group interviews. The P-value of the t-test was calculated for each strategy. The results indicated that there was an improvement in the students’ reading comprehension when m-active learning pedagogy was employed (p < 0.05). The various reading comprehension strategies used in the study (except for summarization strategy) were found to help in improving their reading comprehension as well. The results also showed that among the preferred m-active learning pedagogies were polling, web-tours, breakout rooms and application sharing. The findings also showed that a slow Internet connection and electricity outages were the major limitations in the Palestinian context.