Results and Discussion

Table 1 displays descriptive statistics of the group’s performance on non-mediated and mediated versions of RT A. Students performed significantly better on the mediated version of the test (M=26) than on the non-mediated version (M= 23.13).

Table 1

Descriptive Statistics of the group’s performance on non-mediated and mediated versions of RT A

N Mean SD

Non-mediated version 30 23.13 1.81

Mediated version 30 26 1.30

Valid N (listwise) 30

Results of paired samples t-test analysis (see Table 2) showed that there was a significant difference between mediated and non-mediated scores, t(29)=15.38, p=.00<.05 (two-tailed). Clearly, the findings indicate that mediation boxes have positive effect on the student performance on reading tests. It appears that written intervention within mediation boxes results in learners’ developing reading strategies. Table 2

Paired Samples t-test for mediated and non-mediated versions of RT A

T Df Sig. (2-tailed)

non-mediated – mediated RT A -15.383 29 .000

Table 3 summarizes paired samples t-test results on mediated version of RT A and RT B. T-value was found to be significant at .005 level t(29)=58.86, p=.00<.05, meaning that Ss performed meaningfully better on RT A.

Table 3

Paired Samples t-test for RT B and non-mediated RT A

t df Sig.(2-tailed)

RT B –

Non-mediated RT A 58.865 29 .000

These results suggest that Ss can transcend their mediated learning from a mediated reading test to a novel non-mediated one.

A close look at the performance of learners on test items makes it clear that in some items the performance of learners would be otherwise if mediation were not presented to them. For example, only 30% of the subjects had answered the following item correctly before mediation, while after mediation 80% of them answered it correctly:

The paintings on the walls of Chauvet Cave are about 31000 years old. T/F

Answering this item involved understanding the following section of the passage:

Archeologists who inspected the cave paintings soon after they were discovered estimated that the paintings were about 17000 years old. A few months later, however, tests showed that three of the animals in the paintings were at least 31000 years old.

Learners were supported on this item by the following mediation box:

Mediation Box

1. What are the subjects in the following clauses? "… that the paintings were about 1700 years old." (line 11)

"… that three of the animals in the paintings were at least 31000 years old." (line 12)

Figures 17000 and 31000 were used in the text but the question in the mediation box directed the learners’ attention to the subject which referred to any of these figures. This, in fact, helped the learners to use strategy of understanding relations within the sentence. As the comparison of the proportion of correct responses in non-mediated and sauce-format mediated versions to this item show, mediation has helped learners develop the use of attending to the relations between and among sentence elements strategy, in the case of this item subject-verb relation.

As another example, before receiving mediation, 75% of learners had answered the following item incorrectly:

Before the discovery of Chauvet Cave, archeologists thought that ……… a) people painted for religious reasons.

b) exposing cave paintings to light and air wouldn't damage them. c) people learned to draw and paint gradually over thousands of years. d) people did not need a long time to learn to draw and paint.

Answering this item involved understanding the following paragraph of the text:

Perhaps the most interesting thing about Chauvet cave is that it has forced archeologists to change their ideas about art. For many tears, archeologists believed that it took thousands of years for humans to gradually learn how to draw and paint. Chauvet Cave showed that there were great artists 30000 years ago. Jean Clottes summed it up, saying, "Our ancestors did not need millennia of trial and error to achieve great art. Artistic capacity was one of the components of our species probably right from the start."

However, after receiving the following mediation, they changed their responses; 80% chose the correct response:

Mediation Box

1. What forced the archeologists to change their ideas about art? (line 38)

2. Does the phrase "for many years" refer to the years before or after the discovery of Chauvet Cave? (line 39) 3. Does the phrase "for many years, archeologists believed …" imply that they still believe so? (line 39)

This mediation box helped learners use strategies of understanding relations between parts of a text through

learners' correct responses after being mediated shows that they would be interpreted as unable to answer the item correctly if mediation were not provided.

The results show that sauce format mediation promoted learners’ use of reading strategies. This can be explained by assuming that mediation reveals learners’ potential level of development. This is in substantial agreement with findings of Kozulin & Garb (2002) who assumed DA procedure as “both feasible and effective in obtaining information on the students’ learning potential” (p. 122). Results of this study also indicate that learners are able to transfer their learning from sauce format mediation to other new reading tests. This is consistent with Poehner & Lantolf’s conclusion that “learners’ success in transcending their new abilities represents … an important indicator of the extent to which they have benefitted from and internalized previously offered mediation” (2010, p. 319).