Measuring Reliability of Metacognitive Strategies in Reading Comprehension Questionnaire: A Pilot Study on First Year Engineering Students in Pakistan

This study aimed to investigate the reliability (psychometric properties) of the metacognitive strategies questionnaire piloted on Pakistani engineering students of QUEST, Nawabshah. The questionnaire had four parts including demographic, reading comprehension, metacognition, and scaffolding having 53 questions that were tested on 37 first year engineering students. The Cronbach’s Alpha reliability was measured through SPSS 17. The results showed that the Cronbach’s Alpha reliability concerning reading comprehension ranged from .826-.842, metacognitive strategies ranged from.830-.839, and the reliability of scaffolding ranged from .829-.837. Therefore, the results from the pilot study showed that the questionnaire needed to be used without any modification in the actual study

A study of needs, problems and wants of using English of Engineering students at Quaid-e-Awam university of Engineering, Science and Technology, Pakistan

English language is considered as an official language in Pakistan and is medium of instructions within schools, colleges and universities. However, no study has been conducted to analyse the current situations, needs, problems, and wants of students who study engineering programs. Therefore, this review study is conducted to fill this gap. The purposes of this research were: (1) to investigate needs of engineering students to use English, (2) to find problems of engineering students in using English in their academic and professional studies, and (3) to explore the students’ wants regarding the purpose, content and methodology of engineering students to use English at QUEST Pakistan. This research theoretically tends to develop ESP courses regarding different engineering fields. The literature review directs that the needs of the learners can be fulfilled if the ESP courses in different engineering fields will be completely successful. It also discusses the important principles related to the engineering learners’ needs within teaching learning methods that include curriculum development, its implementation and evaluation. ESP courses are underway to be developed if the learners’ needs are to be fulfilled. This research will be useful in ESP, ESL, ELT and EFL context and will offer different ways to carry out more research in this genre. Keywords: Needs analysis, Engineering programs, problems of engineering student

Peer Observation : A Professional Learning Tool for English Language Teachers in an EFL Institute

The key aim of this study is to explore the perceptions of English as foreign language (EFL) teachers about peer observation as a tool for professional development that is implemented in an English Language Institute of a Saudi Arabian university. This paper reviews literature on peer observation to develop a conceptual and theoretical understanding of peer observation systems in different contexts. It utilizes a mix-method approach and applies a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews as data collection tools. Questionnaire is used to get information about EFL teachers’ perceptions whereas semi-structured interviews provide an insight into their practices in the form of peer observation and future amendments for PD. The participants share their lived experiences who consider the current practice of peer observation a consistent professional challenge due to several factors, i.e. their lack of autonomy in deciding about the peers, trust deficit between administration and EFL teachers, rarely held pre-observation conferences due to the loads of teaching hours, observers’ insufficient training and qualifications in conducting PO, and the element of threat and insecurity. Based on the findings, recommendations are made to improve the existing peer observation system for the benefit of the EFL teachers, English language learners and the institute

Metacognitive Scaffolding in Reading Comprehension: Classroom Observations Reveal Strategies to Overcome Reading Obstacles of Engineering Students at QUEST, Nawabshah, Sindh, Pakistan

This study aimed at investigating the development of reading comprehension of engineering students through metacognitive strategies and scaffolding. This study used 12 classroom observations in four engineering departments of one public university in Pakistan. The researcher observed 3 classes in each department at the time of read-aloud sessions. The class in each department was comprised on minimum 55 students and maximum 75 students. The researcher himself conducted all the 12 observations to maintain reliability without interfere of the complete teaching method. Teacher in each class was introduced by the observer and his aim to come in the first observation session. The observer sat at the back of every classroom and noted all instructional practices carefully on the field-notes based on teachers using metacognitive strategies to support students in terms of reading comprehension instructions. This study revealed the promising results based on metacognitive scaffolding and strategies as the most important tools for engineering students and language teachers to use for the development of reading and comprehension

A Quantitative Research for Improving Reading Comprehension of First Year Engineering Students of QUEST, Pakistan Through Metacognitive Strategies

This quantitative research investigates first year engineering students’ reading comprehension using the different metacognitive strategies and scaffolding strategies. The research was undertaken at QUEST, Nawabshah, Pakistan. The respondents of this research were taken from four engineering departments including Mechanical Engineering, Energy and Environmental Engineering, Electrical Engineering, and Computer System Engineering. A set of questionnaire was used among 311 respondents. The data was analyzed using descriptive statistics to analyze research variables through SPSS 17 for producing the Percentages, Mean and Standard Deviation of the data. The results acquired from data suggested that the engineering respondents used their metacognitive strategies in order to make their comprehension easy to apprehend the meaning of reading passages. This research also revealed the average uses of twenty important categories on metacognitive strategies as reported by engineering respondents. The mean score for ‘I often find that I have been reading for class but don’t know what it is all about’ category (M = 2.65) was rated by the respondents of this research as the highest; while the mean score for ‘reading instructions carefully before beginning a task’ (M = 1.54) was rated as the lowest. The results also showed that the respondents of this study revealed the average uses of the twelve important categories of scaffolding. However, the mean score for ‘When studying this course I often set aside time to discuss the course material with a group of students from the class’ category (M = 2.29) was the highest for all respondents; whereas, the mean score for ‘I ask teachers/students for help when they do not understand’ (M = 1.37) was the lowermost. However, no category of metacognitive strategies and scaffolding fell into low level of usage. To sum up, results are presented for developing effective reading strategies for engineering students to improve their reading proficiency

Improving Reading Comprehension of First Year Engineering Students: A Quantitative Study at QUEST, Nawabshah, Pakistan

This paper reports the results of the research conducted to explore whether students learn reading comprehension more successfully using the different approaches based on strategies in reading texts. The study was conducted at QUEST, in Pakistan and the respondents were selected from four engineering departments. Data was collected through a set of questionnaire used as the qualitative instrument among 311 respondents. However, Questionnaire data was analyzed by using SPSS 17. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze research variables for producing the Percentages, Mean and Standard Deviation of the data. The findings of this study reported that this research investigated 18 categories of reading comprehension. The highest mean score in reading comprehension was for “read aloud practices” category (=2.40) rated by all respondents; while the mean score for “asking questions before, during, and after reading” (= 1.48) was the lowest. However, no category of reading comprehension fell into low level of usage. In short, results, discussion and recommendations are presented for developing effective reading strategies to design syllabus for the engineering students to improve their reading proficiency

Lenses on metacognition: Teachers' perceptions toward strategies in reading in a Pakistani context

The research in the field of metacognition for developing reading is not new; metacognition has been used for many years to identify ways to develop students' reading comprehension. Most previous research has addressed either primary or secondary level students. However, notably few studies have been conducted at the undergraduate level. This study has attempted to initiate strategies to assist first-year engineering students in developing their reading abilities within a Pakistani context. The primary objective of this research was to identify what strategies first-year engineering students use in developing their reading at Quaid-e-Awam University of engineering science and technology in Pakistan. This study used qualitative instruments that included semi-structured interviews with teachers and classroom observations during read-aloud sessions. The data were organized through NVivo version 8 for obtaining nodes, codes, and main themes for interpreting the results. The results of this study demonstrated that teachers should use metacognitive strategies for developing students' reading abilities. Findings also revealed that reading strategies, such as text scanning, guesses from contextual clues, drawing on prior knowledge, and using a dictionary, are the most important strategies to use for developing the reading skills and comprehension of engineering students. This study has suggested metacognitive strategies be used for promoting students' reading abilities and that teachers should design and develop more courses using these strategies to enhance the reading and listening skills of engineering students. © Lomonosov Moscow State University, 2017

Level of Job Satisfaction and Turnover Intention among Academicians

The aim of this study is to explain the unique role of motivation and job satisfaction and turnover intention by digging knowledge taken from different theories and models given by the different researchers and the measurement by different indicators. To understand the job satisfaction and turnover intention seems to be fragmented and tangled in many disciplines. To construct meaningful understanding of motivation and job satisfaction and turnover intention various disciplines were reviewed and synthesized were discussed. The aim of this study is to give the deeper understanding of underlying theories of motivationand job satisfaction and turnover intention. The literature that helps conceptualize the job satisfaction, urnover intention, second, the founding pieces of literature that composite the theory and third, the most emerging literature in the job satisfaction and turnover intention are selected to explain the job satisfaction and turnover intention. Based on thorough review of literature new conceptual studdy has been introduced. In both, the literature and organizational literature, the existing theories of job satisfaction and turnover intention can be evaluated to fully capture the distinctive aspects of the satisfaction various theories of satisfaction are encompassed. This extended literature requires empirical testing to identify the dimensions of the job satisfaction and motivation and turnover intention.The extended literature of job satisfaction and turnover will be useful to bring changes in the satisfaction level of the employees and helps the researchers to understand easily the theories of satisfaction and turnover