Related Studies

This part relates the summary method, findings and conclusion of studies like dissertation, unpublished thesis and other studies viewed. The studies with the current issues and problems compromise of collected research studies are presented respectively according to the problem under investigation. In the study on ‘The Impact of Spare Time Activities on Students’ English Language Skills’ by Sundquist (2009), it aimed to document and verified the relationship between learners’ spare time and their language skills. She designed a longitudinal study, spanning one school year, which was carried out among four classes in ninth grade at three schools, all situated in Western Svealand. The results showed that majority of the students spend much of their time on Extramural English. Learners in this study who spent on such activities benefited from doing so in terms of improved oral proficiency and vocabulary.

Extramural English functions as a pathway to progress in English. Masrour, Tondnevis, Amir, and Mozafori’s (2009) study about ‘Consideration of Leisure Time Spent by Students at Islamic Azad Universities in Iran’, students were given questionnaire based on Tondnevis’ (2009) survey. Cluster sampling was used and questionnaires were distributed in the students taking up General Physical Education courses in two semesters. The study showed that students in Physical Education mostly spend their spare time outside of their said course and thus lead it as barrier to a healthy life. Another is a study done by Ciarlini, Casanova, Furtado and Veloso (2007) on ‘Treating Literary Genres as Application Domain’ where they explored literary genres’ prime relevance to storytelling which can be regarded as a particular kind of application domain.

Their study also focused on how literary genres can be usefully characterized by combining notions drawn from literary theory with well-known models developed for information systems. The study found out that once a genre is specified with some rigor in a constructive way, it becomes possible to determine whether a given plot of a story is a legitimate representative of its genre and can be applied in storytelling. The study by Juvan (2007) on the ‘Intertextuality of Genres and the Intertextual Genres’ examined language systems behind literary texts. His study found out that classifying literature by author, period or genre, which involves grouping bodies of texts according to our perception of certain common traits, serves to accommodate new data and facilitate our understanding.

Due to practices that enact categorization, genre terms attached to particular tests are able to trigger rather predictable associations about their content or form. What counts as a genre and what gets included within a genre depends on what you think a genre is in general, and which common feature of its elements you have decided to foreground as being most salient. A study was conducted on ‘Young People’s Reading in 2005: The Second Study of Young People’s Reading Habits’ by Maynard, MacKay, Smyth and Reynolds (2008). This is a five-yearly survey which aims to know what young people in England are reading, and what they say their reading means to them.

The results of their study can be used to provide information about particular years to make it possible to identify and to monitor the reading habits of the children involved. There were three separate questionnaires given to each age group with a total of 46 participating schools in the survey composed of 22 primary and 24 secondary schools. The findings showed that students from different age groups vary in terms of book borrowing, book selection, and book recommendation. The study on ‘Young People’s Reading in England: Borrowing and Choosing Books’ of Maynard, Mackay, and Smyth (2008) was reviewed by Bogel (2011). They conducted the study to analyze the factors affecting book choice.

This study also analyzed the trends in youth reading habits. Maynard, Mackay, and Smyth (2008) used questionnaires administered to 22 primary and 24 secondary schools in the United Kingdom with access to computers and internet. There were a total of 4,182 respondents of the survey which are separated into age groups: ages 4-7, 7-11 and 11-16. They found out that younger ones were more likely to choose with regards to the visual appeal of the book but these factors were consistent on boys of all age. Among the girls, the authors and the blurb of the book were consistent factor when they choose a book. In regards to selecting series books, it showed that the appealing factors were the consistency of characters, familiar storylines, familiar writing styles and availability of series books.

Here states the related studies on the motivation of students towards reading books as a study done by Gutherie (2006). First is the study done by Nik, Sani, Chik and Raslee (2011). This study aimed to find the connection of reading motivation and reading strategies. In terms of reading motivation, results showed that the highest score on the reading dimensions are challenge, curiosity, compliance, grades and self-efficacy among the others. Among those dimensions having high scores competency and self- efficacy was believed to most students that they can be successful when they read, challenge scored more than half showing that students are motivated to read on willingness to read difficult materials. On the other hand, work avoidance dimension scored half or 45.1% on disagreed that students have reading as an excuse to work. They investigated 245 undergraduates to achieve this said study.

The second study is made by Baker and Wigfield (1999) entitled ‘Dimensions of Children’s Motivation for Reading and Their Relations to Reading Activity and Reading Achievement.’ The study was made to measure dimensions of reading motivation and to observe how the dimensions relate to students’ achievement and reading activity. They made a questionnaire for assessing 11 possible dimensions for reading motivation and the students completed several different measures of reading activity and achievement. Results showed that different dimensions relate with one another. It shows that reading motivation is multidimensional and must be regarded to be researched further.

The study done by Akkoyunlu and Soylu (2008) on ‘A study of Student’s Perceptions in a Blended Learning Environment Based on Different Learning Styles’ examined the students’ learning styles and their views on blended learning. Their study also focused on the most suitable learning environments for the students’ learning styles. They conducted the study with thirty-four students at Hacettepe University, Ankara, Turkey. The two instruments used were the questionnaire designed to identify the students’ views on blended learning and Kolb’s Learning Style Inventory (LSI) to measure student’s learning styles. The overall findings showed no significant differences between student’s achievement levels according to their learning styles.

Another study by Mayer and Massa (2003) on ‘Three Facets of Visual and Verbal Learners: Cognitive Ability, Cognitive Style, and Learning Preference’ examined the hypothesis that some people are verbal learners and some people are visual learners. They presented a battery of 14 cognitive measures related to the visualizer–verbalizer dimension to 95 college students and then conducted correlational and factor analyses. In a factor analysis, each measure loaded most heavily onto 1 of 4 factors: cognitive style (such as visual–verbal style questionnaires), learning preference (such as behavioral and rating instruments involving visual–verbal preferences in multimedia learning scenarios), spatial ability (such as visualization and spatial relations tests and verbal–spatial ability self-ratings), and general achievement (such as tests of verbal and mathematical achievement). Results have implications for how to conceptualize and measure individual differences in the visualizer–verbalizer dimension and cognitive style in general.

A study of the Impact of Children’s Book-Based Blockbuster Moves on Library Circulation was explored by Hendershot (2007). The main objective was to determine the impact of children’s book-based movies have on the school library circulation rates of the books and whether book-based movies get children interested in those books, and vice versa. Five school libraries were selected from the Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill regions of North Carolina to provide the circulation statistics for this study.

The data gathered and analyzed from each of the schools included of the book title and number of the title (in all its formats) was checked-out during the specific time period. Closely examining and comparing the specific library circulation statistics before and after the book-based Blockbuster movie’s release determined the impact these movies have on the circulation of that book in school libraries and provided insight into whether the previews and publicity for a book-based movie coming to a big screen encourage reading, or if seeing a movie is a motivator to then read the book.

Hendershort (2007) study revealed that there is a strong correlation between the number of times a book has been checked-out and the release of that particular book-based Blockbuster movie. It proved that children are motivated to check-out the book, and possibly read the book, as a result of the book-based Blockbuster movie.

In addition, the study done by Moyer (2011) on “Teens Today Don’t Read” examined the differences in comprehension and interest across formats. There were female college students participants. Each read 4 to 6 pages of the print text, read an equivalent amount of an e-book, and listened to approximately 10 minutes of an audio book. Participants filled out the same measure after experiencing each text, providing a consistent, comparable measure across formats. This research found no statistically significant differences in comprehension across print, e-book, and audio book modalities. Participants’ level of comprehension for each text was the same regardless of the format in which it was received. In other words, the text that was the least popular was equally not engaging in all three formats.

A study conducted by Tung and Chang (2009) on ‘Developing Critical Thinking through Literature Reading’ investigates the efficiency of developing critical thinking through literary readings. In their study, there were 12 non- English majors composed of 10 females and 2 males. This 18- week course with 2-hour session per week was just optional. Their discussion focuses about three genres: fiction, poet and drama. Several findings were discovered according to this study. First, after the study has made, students who got low scores in pretest has shown improvement in their overall critical thinking analysis ability. Second, it was also visible that the Critical Thinking Disposition (CTD) and Critical Thinking Skills (CTS) are quite weak. Another is that students became more aggressive with critical thinking.

They also realized that the importance and necessity in applying critical thinking is highly acknowledged in different domains in learning. Students became more comfortable with and confident in asking “why” and “how”. Lastly, the findings in this study support that literature reading helped the weak thinkers improve their overall critical thinking and especially demonstrated better skills in analysis. The other study conducted by Carey, Cameron, and Leftwich (2013) on ‘Improving Elementary Students Engagement during Independent Reading through the Teacher Conferencing, Teaching Modeling, and Student Choice’ intends to increase engagement during independent reading for 32 fourth- grade student and 26 seventh– grade science student. The researchers found out that students not choosing or knowing how to choose a book at the appropriate reading level was common among results.