Students’ Perceptions of Reading Strategies When Engaging With Online Texts in an Undergraduate Academic Reading Class

Abstract

The increasing use of digital academic materials have changed the way undergraduate students access and understand academic information. Online academic texts provides convenient access to many resources, but students also need to use suitable reading strategies in order to understand the information effectively. This study examines undergraduate students perceptions towards reading strategies when engaging with online academic texts. A quantitative survey was conducted among 115 undergraduate students from Semester 3 and Semester 4 at Universiti Teknologi MARA. Data were collected using a structured questionnaire containing ten reading strategy items and measured using a five point Likert scale. The data was analysed using descriptive statistics, Cronbach alpha, one way ANOVA and Tukey post hoc analysis. The findings showed that rereading difficult sections obtained the highest mean score, followed by vocabulary lookup and adjusting reading speed. Setting reading goals recorded the lowest mean score. The reliability analysis showed an acceptable Cronbach alpha value of .745. The ANOVA result also indicated a significant difference in overall reading strategy scores according to the frequency of online academic reading. The findings suggest that students are using different strategies when reading online, although some strategies especially metacognitive strategies still need more attention in academic reading instruction.