Enhancing Chinese University Students' Reading Comprehension and Self-Directed Learning Abilities through Collaborative Strategic Reading Instruction

Abstract

Collaborative Strategic Reading Instruction (CSRI) refers to the practice of enhancing students' reading comprehension ability and Self-directed Learning (SDL) ability through cooperative learning strategies and structured reading activities. The purposes of the study were to 1) design CSRI to enhance Chinese university students' reading comprehension and SDL abilities, 2) examine the effect of CSRI on enhancing Chinese university students' reading comprehension abilities, and 3) investigate SDL abilities when they have learned through CSRI. The research was conducted in two phases. In the first phase, the researcher developed and validated CSRI lesson plans, a reading comprehension test, and an SDL questionnaire, and surveyed 254 English major students to assess their current abilities. In the second phase, five CSRI lesson plans were implemented with 30 students over five weeks, and changes in reading comprehension, and SDL abilities. The results revealed that the experimental group receiving CSRI scored significantly higher (M = 25.80) than the control group (M = 20.08) in the post-test, with a large effect size (t = 8.43, p < 0.01). This indicates that CSRI is an effective instructional approach for improving English reading comprehension among university students. The experimental group who received CSRI showed significantly higher SDL scores (M = 59.43) than the control group (M = 45.30), with a large effect size (t = 9.081, p < 0.01). This demonstrates that CSRI effectively enhances students' SDL abilities compared to traditional instructional methods.