Research Instruments – the Main Study

As noted in Section 3.5.5.3, some important lessons, learned from the pilot study, about the research instruments, were to be addressed before conducting the main study. Therefore the following section discusses the research instruments of the main study explaining what lessons were learned from the pilot study and how they were addressed before conducting the main data collection.

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3.6.1.1 Reading Habits Questionnaire – the Main Study

The pilot study suggested that the reading habits questionnaire adapted for piloting was appropriate to measure the students' reading habits. However, a few important issues were needed to be addressed. A brief illustration of the issues and how they were resolved before the main study data collection is given below.

The first issue discovered from the pilot study questionnaire was related to the term ‘L2’. Many participants were confused not only with the term ‘L2’ but also they had difficulty to select their L2 of reading. ‘L2’ was also problematic during the data analysis as it was difficult to set the frequency scores of learners to make the data accessible for statistical analysis in order to measure the students’ reading habits. Therefore, the term ‘L2’ was removed from the main study questionnaire. Consequently all the questions related to participants’ L2 reading were also removed from the main study questionnaire (See Main Questionnaire in Appendix 3). Similarly, the pilot questionnaire used an item; ‘medium of schooling’ that was found irrelevant during the data analysis so it was also removed from the main study questionnaire.

Additionally, some problems related to the questionnaire layout were also indicated during the pilot study. For example, in questions 4.1 and 5.1 the numbers were written along with the words as ‘1 never, 2 rarely’; hence the majority of the participants did not attempt those questions. Therefore, the words were separated from the numbers in the main study questionnaire. One important addition made to the main study questionnaire was that the option ‘Others’ was replaced with, a new option ‘magazines’. This was because 50% of the participants suggested they read magazines, for the option ‘Others’ during the pilot study. Interestingly, none of the participants suggested ‘Internet’ reading, which indicated that either the participants did not use internet for reading or they did not consider it different from paper reading.

No further changes were made to the main study questionnaire because the participants did not face any confusion in attempting it and it was suggested an

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appropriate tool to investigate the Sindhi and Urdu students’ reading habits (in English, in L1 and overall).

3.6.1.2 English Reading Test – the Main Study

As discussed in Section 2.5 of Chapter Two, in order to measure English reading performance of students, especially at the university level, a reading test with various reading types that university students come across in daily life was required. The pilot study suggested that all the test parts were not only measuring the students’ English reading performance appropriately on careful and expeditious reading types but they were compatible with the level of the students.

However, during the pilot data analysis, it was found that many lower level participants from both the Sindhi and Urdu groups received high scores on part four of the pilot study reading test (Adapted from PET reading Section 3 to analyse students’ performance on expeditious reading). As a result, part four of the main study test was replaced with Part 3 of the FCE reading test. This made the main study test balanced in terms of B1 and B2 levels. In general, the first three parts of the main study reading test were the same, though selected from different editions of PET and FCE tests, as that of the pilot study, whereas only part four of the main study was replaced with Section 3 of FCE (See Main English reading test in Appendix 4).

3.6.1.3 Interviews – the Main Study

Similar to the pilot study, semi-structured interviews were conducted in the main study. However, the interview questions, in the main study, differed in many ways from those of the pilot study. This was mainly due to the different purposes of the interviews in the pilot and the main study. For example, the main purpose of pilot study interviews was to assess the appropriateness of the various research instruments used in the study and what changes could be essential to further develop them for the main study.

On the other hand, the main study interviews, as discussed in Section 3.4.1.3, were aimed at understanding and exploring the factors that might influence reading habits

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of students and provide deeper insight into the research problem from broader perspectives. Hence, an interview protocol was formulated to gain information mainly about the students’: a) home background, b) educational background, c) parents’ and teachers’ role in fostering reading habits d) English learning experiences in the past e) socio-cultural background and f) reading habits in English and in L1. These factors have been reported having great influence on reading habits of students at various levels of education. Additionally, it may be noted here that Q1 and Q2 in the reading habits questionnaire were not only intended to generate quantitative data but also qualitative data. It was found during the data analysis that 30% of the participants did not attempt the qualitative part (Why) and those who responded did not suggest many details, hence they were not analysed separately. However, they suggested different elements related to their reading habits, which also helped the design of the interview protocol (See Main Interview Questions and their rationale in Appendix 5).

The interview data ultimately allowed integrating the qualitative findings with the quantitative results to answer the research questions. After discussing the changes made to the research instruments of the main study in light of the lessons learned from the pilot, it may be useful now to discuss how the main study data was collected starting with the sampling.

3.6.2 Sampling – the Main Study

The main study began with the search for a representative sample of participants from the university and not from a single department as was the case in the pilot study. The sampling method and the participants’ level of English proficiency were decided in the same ways as those of the pilot study. However, the sample size was much bigger than that of the pilot study. Also, it was selected from five departments of the three major faculties of the university. In total 220 participants from two different L1 groups: Sindhi (n=133) and Urdu (n=87) respectively, were selected to fit the research design. The participants were selected from three different faculties within the University of Sindh, Pakistan: the Faculty of Arts, the Faculty Social Sciences and the Faculty Natural Sciences.

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The main reason for selecting the participants from these faculties was that these are the three major faculties at the University of Sindh and also some of the departments have more Sindhi; whereas the others have more Urdu students. The departments were selected on the basis of students’ admission criterion established by the University. For example; the students who get highest percentile based on their Intermediate level and entry test usually get admission in Computer Science whereas the second highest percentile students get admission either in English, Biochemistry or Zoology and the third highest percentile students usually get admission in the departments of the faculty of Social Sciences. Therefore, to select a representative sample of Sindhi and Urdu participants and accommodate as many students as possible from each lingual group; it was necessary to select students from the aforementioned faculties in the University.