Abstract
D.Phil.
Reading constitutes a major part of academic activities especially at tertiary level where
acquisition of knowledge depends on written texts. For university students in particular, key sources of new knowledge in domains of science, for example, are often textbooks, reference books, journal articles and laboratory manuals. In reading the texts, students are expected either to develop or to review information on their own. Unfortunately many first-year university students have difficulties understanding and acquiring knowledge from texts effectively and efficiently. This problem is often more pronounced among students who have to read through English second language (ESL).
This study was prompted by complaints from the University of the North first-year physics
lecturers that their first-year students were experiencing serious problems with accessing
information from their prescribed texts. A provisional assumption made is that lack of reading strategies combined with lack of cognitive skills made worse by poor English language proficiency are to a great extent responsible for this failure. The aim of this study, therefore, is to explore the reading behaviour of the University of the North first-year students in as far as the learning of physics is concerned.
Results show that these students do indeed lack cognitive and metacognitive strategies and that their English proficiency level is below what is expected of them at first year. They are therefore ill-prepared to deal with their prescribed text (physics) through this medium.
This study recommends that students should be given explicit instruction in strategy selection and use but that these should be sufficiently flexible to be utilized in a variety of contexts and must eventually be owned by the students themselves for later use. The ultimate goal is for students to use the strategy without guidance from their lecturer