The Investigation in Reading Problems and Reading Strategies of Undergraduate Students

Abstract

This study aimed to (1) investigate reading problems and (2) explore reading strategies of the fourth-year EFL students majoring in English for communication in the Faculty of Liberal Arts, Rajamangala University of Technology Thanyaburi, Thailand. The quantitative approach was employed to find out the answers using questionnaires. The questionnaires consisted of reading problems and reading strategies were verified by three experts. The population of this study included 153 students studying in the first semester of academic year 2020. The findings revealed that four main reading problems of the students were the limited knowledge of technical words, the re-reading problems, the lack of background knowledge about the topic, and the length of sentences, respectively. It was also indicated that three main reading strategies that students used to overcome their problems consisted of guessing words from the clues, using the title to predict the content, and linking the content to their prior knowledge, respectively. As the research population was limited, it was suggested that the further studies should be conducted with students from other fields and years.