Abstract:
This research investigates the effect of conjunctions on the students’
performance on cloze tests on the one hand, and the effect of conjunctions on
the students’ ability to unscramble the scrambled sentences on the other. To
carry out this research, the researcher randomly selected two groups of junior
students majoring in TEFL and English literature. Both groups were given a
Michigan test and the two groups proved to be homogeneous. They were then
randomly assigned to control and experimental. There was no treatment
whatsoever in this study. Due to theit homogeneity, it was supposed that the
two groups’ performance would be the same on the other tests as well,
provided that the level of the tests was the same and appropriate to the
subjects’ language proficiency level and they were administered without too
long an interval in between. Neither of the two groups {control and
experimental) might get extra instruction as a tesult of which their
performance on the following tests might be influenced. Thus, any significant
difference in the performance of the two groups on the subsequent tests
would be attributed to the presence of the absence of conjunctive devices in
the texts. To that end, two versions of the same tests for each phase or aspect
of the study were prepared. Conjunctions were removed from one version,
i.e. the experimental group's, whereas they were preserved ot even some
other conjunctions were added to that of the control group. These very tests
were administered to the two groups and the t-test formula was then utilized.
It showed that the subjects (experimental group) who received the tests with
conjunctions omitted from the texts performed poorly on the tests for each
phase, thus rejecting the null hypotheses.
Machine summary:
The Role of Conjunctions in Reading Comprehension and in Textual Sequence for Iranian Students* Eshagh Akbariyan Qom University Abstract This research investigates the effect of conjunctions on the students' performance on doze tests on the one hand, and the effect of conjunctions on the students' ability to unscramble the scrambled sentences on the other.
The study of the role of conjunctions in comprehension of texts and unscrambling the scrambled sentences provides the researcher with a vivid idea as to how the devices contribute to the overall understanding of texts in first and second language as well as how Iranian students benefit from them in reading comprehension and textual sequencing.
Interestingly, a number of research studies have provided empirical evidence that the rhetorical organization of a text interacts with the readers' background knowledge of cohesion in general and conjunctions in particular —to effect reading comprehension.
45 This led the researcher to conclude that the two groups' performance would be the same on the other tests as well, due to their homogeneity, provided that the level of the tests was the same and appropriate to the subjects' language proficiency level and they were MAL, Vol. 5, No. 1, Summer 2001 11 administered without too long an interval in between, Thus any significant difference in the performance of the two groups would be attributed to the presence of the conjunctions in the texts of the control group and absence of these devices from the experimental groups' passages, thus rejecting the null hypotheses, The results are presented in Table 2, Table 2 The Results of the Two Groups' Performance on Cloze Tests Os Ss Mean Median Mode Range V SD t- 0 1- C CO 22 12.