Becoming a strategic reader : the effectiveness of self-directed learning in HKU taught-postgraduate students’ academic reading Practices

Abstract

This participatory action research investigates the effectiveness of an educational intervention aimed at fostering self-direction and peer support among six mainland Chinese postgraduate students in a Hong Kong university. The study has a qualitative orientation but triangulates data of questionnaires, interviews, and observational data. The study addresses a research gap in self-directed reading strategy intervention and aims to contribute to the currently small body of empirical evidence for the potential benefits of collaboration and peer support in developing students’ academic reading skills. The results show that there has been an overall enhancement of participants’ reading strategies awareness and reader self-rating during the intervention. The self-directed, autonomous learning tasks are appreciated by the participants for the opportunities to activate metacognitive reading processes, in which they detect, adjust, and orchestrate their reading strategies. The study also demonstrates that the peer forum scheme is effective in promoting peer connectedness and restructuring students’ learning environments, in facilitating the exchange of academic reading strategies, tools, knowledge, and in stimulating critical reflection on academic reading practices. More importantly, the affective dimension of peer collaboration is highly valued by participants. The findings reveal cognitive, metacognitive, and affective gains perceived by the participants and lend credit to effectiveness of the Collaborative Self-Directed Learning framework in students’ reading strategies and skills development. Several pedagogical and research implications are proposed for future reading strategy interventions and academic literacy training.