خلاصة:
Problem-based learning (PBL) has recently gained prominence because of its potential to engage learners in learning process and to encourage deep meaningful knowledge construction. This quasi-experimental research, hence, aimed at implementing PBL in an EFL context to investigate its impact on participants’ engagement and reading comprehension. Two groups of elementary level students, one as experimental group (N = 40) and one as control group (N = 40) whose homogeneity in language proficiency was examined by Key English Test (KET) were selected. The experimental group received PBL and the control group received lecture-based method. The two groups completed pre- and posttests of PETALS engagement instrument (PEI) and reading comprehension. The results, based on multivariate analysis of covariance and one-way analysis of covariance, indicated that the PBL group had higher engagement and more enhanced reading comprehension ability. To have highly engaged successful learners in reading comprehension classes, practitioners in EFL context should pay special attention to student-centered methods like PBL.
ملخص الجهاز:
Keywords : Engagement, Problem-based Learning, Reading Comprehen- sion, self-directed learning, collaboration Introduction In modern educational settings, the goal of education must be the facilitation of change and learning; this goal goes beyond cognitive education (Stentoft, 2017) and is in line with an experiential learning which has meaning and involves learners’ active participation in knowledge construction (Lin, 2015).
One of the language skills that requires active engagement on the part of learners to achieve in-depth comprehension and meaningful learning for the purpose of performing cognitive and procedural tasks such as taking a test, writing a paper, giving a speech and also acquiring professional knowledge in educational fields is reading comprehension (Lin, 2017b).
However, the main impediment in acquiring deep meaningful knowledge in reading is that teach- ing comprehension is mostly based on lecture-based methods in most tradi- tional academic contexts (Lin, 2015) which prevents learners to actively partic- ipate in the learning process (MacKenzie, 2015).
The scarcity of the research endeavors into the possible role of PBL in language learning particularly read- ing comprehension and also its possible impact on learners’ engagement level which is considered the main factor in deep meaningful learning (Rashid & As- ghar, 2016) calls for further studies to investigate these issues.
Thus, the pre- sent research attempted to bridge the gap by probing the instructional effec- tiveness of PBL, first, on EFL learners’ engagement level during the learning process and second, on their reading comprehension ability.
Another study by Lin (2017b) investigated whether implementing PBL in English reading course can foster EFL learners’ comprehension ability, strategy use and their active learning.