This study will develop a standard of self-regulated reading for fifth-grade elementary students, investigate it along with the actual conditions of reading, and examine the results. It will further examine whether the ability of self-regulated readin...
This study will develop a standard of self-regulated reading for fifth-grade elementary students, investigate it along with the actual conditions of reading, and examine the results. It will further examine whether the ability of self-regulated reading can become a prediction variant for amount, time, and ability of reading after analyzing the differences of various factors of self-regulated reading depending on amount of reading, time, and ability level among the actual conditions of reading. The objective of this study is to explore desirable methods of reading education based on these research results.
For the purposes, this study will focus on the following research issues.
First, what is the result of elementary students' self-regulated reading?
Second, what are the actual conditions of reading of that elementary students perceived?
Third, are there any differences in the factors of self-regulated reading according to the perceived levels of reading quantity, time and ability level among the actual conditions of reading?
The subjects of this study were 257 fifth-grade elementary students in Seoul. For the method of measurement, a standard of self-regulated reading that was developed by the researcher after reviewing preceding researches on self-regulated learning, and a questionnaire on the actual conditions of reading were used. A descriptive statistics estimation, frequency analysis, correlation analysis, and one-way ANOVA were performed against variables to analyze the data.
The results of this study are as follows:
Firstly, there was a static correlation of .530 to .805(p<.01) between the subvariants of self-regulated reading. The Cronbach's Alpha showed a range of .876 to .888 between motivational, cognitive, and behavioral regulation factors with respect to the reliability. The exploratory factor analysis showed that the uni-dimensionality of the motivational, cognitive, and behavioral regulation factors were confirmed. Furthermore, the results of the investigation of the self-regulated reading revealed that the subvariants of motivational regulation had similar scores, and both cognitive and behavioral regulations showed similar results. According to the level-based analysis, the difference in score between intermediate and high levels was smaller than that between low and intermediate levels. With respect to the difference of self-regulated reading variants in the results, there was a meaningful difference in achievement value, cognition strategy, time regulation, and reading behavior regulation, and the score of female students was higher.
Secondly, regarding the actual conditions of reading that fifth-grade elementary students perceived, the analysis showed that the distribution rate of the students who were positively cognizant of their reading ability or degree of enjoying, was much higher. On the contrary, the high, intermediate, and low levels showed similar distribution rates in terms of amount of reading. Regarding the amount of reading, the low level had a higher distribution rate than the high level and the intermediate level had the lowest distribution rate. When judging only from the actual conditions of reading, it can be assumed that there is no positive correlation between reading ability, degree of enjoying, number of genres of preference, and actual amount of reading or variation in time of reading.
Thirdly, after performing a one-way ANOVA to confirm whether there is some difference in self-regulated reading factors depending on amount of reading, time, and ability level among the actual conditions of reading, it is confirmed that as the amount of reading, time, and ability level increase, the diagnosis result of self-regulated reading factors also increases at a meaningful level. The result of Scheffe post hoc test showed that the difference between groups was relatively confirmed at a meaningful level. The variant that showed the closest result to the level-based result of the self-regulated reading investigation, was the degree of enjoying reading. Consequently, the self-regulated reading ability can become a prediction variant for amount, time, and ability of reading, and degree of enjoying. Particularly, it is assumed that the ability can be of considerable help in improving the degree of enjoying reading.
The study reached the following conclusions based on the research results.
This study assumes that diagnosing the ability of self-regulated reading can play a meaningful role in establishing a concrete plan for reading education to improve the actual conditions of reading. Efficient reading education can be achieved if an appropriate goal for reading education is established and an education plan is devised and implemented after diagnosing subvariants such as motivational, cognitive, and behavioral regulation abilities, and the reasons of negative actual conditions of reading.
For desirable reading education for elementary students, firstly, it is necessary to set the improvement of self-regulated reading ability as the basic goal and implement it. Reading education that can provide a constant condition where the self-regulated reading ability can be acquired and exerted, is required. Secondly, rather than forcing level, it will be helpful to provide a list of recommended books that students can freely select and read and to help them improve the self-regulated reading ability through voluntary reading activity. Thirdly, reading education that can encourage students to consider reading activity as leisure, should be implemented. Fourthly, reading education needs to escape from the education that focuses on cognition areas.
It is hopeful that reading education would be implemented with the focus on the basic goal of improving the self-regulated reading ability and this study could be helpful to the reading education for elementary students, which is the basis for being voluntary life-time readers.