Turkish adult EFL learners' motivation, participation and performance in Collaborative Strategic Reading classes

The present study aims to explore the effectiveness of Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR) on Turkish university prep-school students' reading motivation, engagement, and performance. The study was conducted in the 2017-2018 academic year with 39 prep-class B1 level students, who had eight hours of reading classes every week at Yalova University School of Foreign Languages. The participants were allocated to experimental and control groups. The learners in the experimental group had reading classes with CSR for seven weeks while the learners in the control group received no CSR treatment, yet reading instruction was given with the traditional whole class approach. This study adopted a quasi-experimental design, and multiple types of data were gathered through the instruments comprising pre and post reading tests, the Motivation for Reading Questionnaire (MRQ), participation rubrics, self-assessment rubrics, and CSR implementation questionnaire. The statistical results obtained from paired sampled t-test analysis demonstrated that CSR significantly affects the development of motivation towards reading. The pre-test - post-test comparison was also statistically significant in overall reading performance and summary skills. Furthermore, the findings revealed that students' participation significantly differed among groups in six weeks out of seven weeks. According to CSR questionnaire results, the students found CSR more effective on reading comprehension than the traditional approach. Overall, the results verify the assumption that CSR implementation in university-level language classes is worthwhile to cultivate students' motivation, engagement, and performance.