Forecasting reading anxiety for promoting English-language reading performance based on reading annotation behavior

Abstract

To reduce effectively the reading anxiety of learners while reading English articles, a C4.5 decision tree, a widely used data mining technique, was used to develop a personalized reading anxiety prediction model (PRAPM) based on individual learners' reading annotation behavior in a collaborative digital reading annotation system (CDRAS). In addition to forecasting immediately the reading anxiety levels of learners, the proposed PRAPM can be used to identify the key factors that cause reading anxiety based on the fired prediction rules determined by the developed decision tree. By understanding these key factors that cause reading anxiety, instructors can apply reading strategies to reduce reading anxiety, thus promoting English-language reading performance. To assess whether the proposed PRAPM can assist instructors in reducing the reading anxiety of learners, this study applies the quasi-experimental method to compare the learning performance of three learning groups, which are, respectively, supported by a CDRAS with individual annotations, collaborative annotations, and collaborative annotations with online instructor's support to reduce reading anxiety by the proposed PRAPM. The instructional experiment was conducted on Grade 7 students at Taipei Municipal Wan-Fang high school. Experimental results indicate that the average correct prediction rate of the proposed PRAPM in identifying the reading anxiety levels of learners was as high as 70%. Moreover, analytical results show that the collaborative annotation with online instructor's support for reducing reading anxiety by the proposed PRAPM indeed helps learners reduce reading anxiety, particularly for the male learners, showing that gender difference exists. Furthermore, based on online instructor's support for reducing reading anxiety by the proposed PRAPM, the correlation analysis also shows that the online instructor's interaction with the male learners is significantly correlated with the reading anxiety reduction. Furthermore, English-language learning performance of the three learners groups, which were given a CDRAS with different learning mechanisms, was significantly promoted.Interactive Learning Environments, 2014 http://dx.

Exploring Digital Literacy Practices via L2 Social Reading

“…Similar to Blyth (2014), we found that the instructor gained valuable insights regarding their students' understanding of the various Hispanic poems read and annotated via Hylighter. In contrast to previous work on the use of DATs in an L2 classroom context (e.g., Chen et al, 2016;Thoms, Sung, & Poole, 2017;Yu, 2014), this study noted that a majority of students' annotated comments were either literary or social in nature, with few focusing on linguistic issues (i.e., lexical or grammatical queries to fellow students).…”

“…Research on DATs has thus far primarily been carried out in first language (L1) contexts (e.g., Gao, 2013;Kiili, Laurinen, Marttunen, & Leu, 2012;Lu & Deng, 2013;Mendenhall & Johnson, 2010;Yang, Yu, & Sun, 2013;Zarzour & Sellami, 2017), where learners read literary texts written in their L1 and provide annotated comments on them using their L1. In L2 contexts, initial studies have mostly investigated the impact of DATs on English as a Foreign Language (EFL) students, specifically targeting student perceptions (Lo, Yeh, & Sung, 2013;Nor, Azman, & Hamat, 2013), the impact of DATs on reading comprehension scores (Chang & Hsu, 2011;Yeh, Hung, & Chiang, 2017;Yu, 2014), and/or how different uses of DATs by students impact reading skills and approaches (Chen, Wang, Chen, & Wu, 2016;Tseng, Yeh, & Yang, 2015;Yeh, Hung, & Chiang, 2017;Yu, 2014).…”

Classroom Interventions and Foreign Language Anxiety: A Systematic Review With Narrative Approach

“…The most common features were related to communication: CMC such as text chat and online forums ( Arnold, 2007 ), student–student interactions such as peer feedback ( Bailey and Cassidy, 2019 ), and teacher-student interaction such as portfolio assessment ( Nosratinia and Abdi, 2017 ). Some interventions included both student–student and teacher-student interactions ( Liao and Wang, 2015 ; Chen et al, 2016 ; Tang, 2016 ), and some had both CMC and student–student/teacher-student communication (e.g., Ku and Chen, 2015 ). Our review further found learner-internal features of FLAR interventions.…”

Do reading boredom and reading boredom coping strategies predict reading comprehension performance? An empirical investigation of Saudi EFL learners

“…Also, the influence of computer-assisted language learning on reading achievement was determined (Khezrlou, Ellis, & Sadeghi, 2017). In addition, few researchers considered the association between psychological variables and reading comprehension performance including anxiety (Chen et al, 2016;Tsai & Lee, 2018), motivation (Galgao, 2016), self-efficacy beliefs (Shehzad et al, 2019), multiple intelligence (Rostami Abu Saeedi & Jafarigohar, 2019;Zahedi & Moghaddam, 2016), critical thinking (Fahim & Barjesteh, 2018), and reading enjoyment (Tavsancil, Yildirim, & Bilican Demir, 2019). Despite the keen interest of researchers regarding the association of psychological variables with EFL reading comprehension performance, there is paucity of research involving a well-researched psychological variable in other fields, i.e., boredom.…”