The effects of reading test-taking strategies on students' English reading achievement

The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of reading test taking strategy training on university preparatory class students' performance in English reading tests. The study was conducted with 90 preparatory class students in 2013/2014 academic year at Erciyes University School of Foreign Languages. At the beginning of the study, 250 beginner level students were given questionnaire, which was designed to find out the students' awareness of reading test taking strategies. The data collected form questionnaire was analysed descriptively using SPSS 16.0 computer program. According to the questionnaire results, 119 students were below the mean score. Among these 119 students, 30 students were chosen randomly as Group 1 (Face to Face Training Group) and were given test taking strategy training for six weeks. Another 30 students were also chosen randomly as Group 2 (Online Self-training Group) and were just informed about the topics and directed to study on their own. Group 3 (Control Group) consisting of 30 randomly selected students were given neither instruction nor training. With the aim of analysing the impact of strategy training, students' test results were compared. Moreover, face to face semi-structured interviews were held with 30 students and these interviews were analysed through content analysis. The following results have been obtained from the data: 1) nearly half of the students were not well informed about the learning strategies; 2) students' awareness of test taking strategies are in parallel with their test performance; 3) the test performance of Face to Face Training Group were found to be higher than the performance of Control Group; 4) reading test performance of self-training group, who were excluded from the training program but directed to study personally, were detected to be higher than the Control Group as well; 5) Face to Face Training Group had better scores than the self training group in the same reading test; 6) at the end of the strategy training program, semi-structured interviews carried out with Face to Face Training Group indicated that students had difficulty in guessing the meaning from the context and drawing inference while detecting the question types, finding the main idea, skimming and scanning were reported to be useful and practical by the students. In the light of the findings of this research, the benefits of inserting reading test taking strategies into the regular curriculum at preparatory classes were emphasized. Keywords: Test taking strategies, strategy training, reading tests, preparatory class