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English Language Reading Comprehension of Pakistani HSSC/HSC Level

Students: Perceptions and Performance

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 Pakistan Languages and Humanities Review P-ISSN 2708-6453
April-June, 2022, Vol. 6, No. 2[1180-1191] O-ISSN 2708-6461

RESEARCH PAPER
English Language Reading Comprehension of Pakistani
HSSC/HSC Level Students: Perceptions and Performance
Madiha Rehman*1 Dr. Muhammad Fareed2 Aisha Khan3
1. Lecturer (English) , Department of Sciences & Humanities, FAST - National University
of Computer & Emerging Sciences, Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan
2. Associate Professor (English), Department of Humanities, NED University of
Engineering & Technology, Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan
3. Instructor (English), Department of Sciences & Humanities, FAST - National University
of Computer & Emerging Sciences, Karachi, Sindh, Pakistan
Note: This research paper was presented at Asian Conference on Business, Economics, and
Social Sciences, ACBESS-2021
DOI http://doi.org/10.47205/plhr.2022(6-II)99
PAPER INFO ABSTRACT
Received: This mixed method research investigation was conducted to
March 20, 2022 determine the differences in reading skills performance
Accepted: between the Federal Board of Intermediate and Secondary
June 28, 2022 Education (FBISE) and the Board of Intermediate Education
Online:
Karachi (BIEK). Quantitative data were collected through
June 30 , 2022
reading comprehension tests, and qualitative data were
Keywords:
collected through focus group interviews to achieve the study
Assessment ,
objective. Sample of this study consisted of 60 students - 30 from
ESL,
each board and English faculty from the selected college. The
Reading Skills
reading tests were analyzed using SPSS (V.24), and Saldaña's
*Corresponding
(2013) thematic analysis was used for focus group interviews.
Author
The findings indicated that Federal Board (FBISE) students
performed better than Karachi Board (BIEK) in reading
comprehension tests. Student focus group interviews reveal that
students' performance highly depends on the students’ reading
madiha.rehman@ interest, prescribed course books reading, and teachers'
nu.edu.pk guidelines. The English language teachers’ focus group
interviews conclude that students' performance relies on their
urge to seek knowledge and their approach to reading books.
The teahers also believe curriculum and assessment procedure
at the HSSC/HSC level also play an important role in the
learners’ reading performance.
Introduction

Pakistan is a linguistically diversified and rich country; it has seventy-two

living languages. Urdu is the national language of Pakistan and English language is
used as an official language (Rahman, 2007). The English language has remained a
pivotal, esteemed, status quo, and reputable language in Pakistani society since
independence (Shamim, 2008). Despite, its esteemed and high reputation in the
country, only three to four percent of the Pakistani population can speak the English
language with proficiency (Rahman, 2007). Pakistani students mostly lack two major
 Pakistan Languages and Humanities Review (PLHR) April-June, 2022, Vol. 6, No. 2

skills: reading and writing. These deficiencies are quite interlinked with inadequate
teaching techniques and prescribed textbooks (Aftab, 2011) and the examination
system of Pakistan which is not only outmoded but also does not have the state to
assess the performance of students comprehensively. The examination system
examines only the memory and rote learning of students (Ahmad, I, Rehman, K.U.,
Ali, A, Khan, I, Khan, F.A., 2014, p.80). Rote learning is the only mode to assess
students in SSC (Secondary School Certificate) and HSC (Higher Secondary
Certificate) in Pakistan and this rote learning continues when they move towards
tertiary education (Ahmed, A & Ahmad, N., 2017) resulting in weak receptive and
productive skills (Christie & Afzaal, 2005)

The English language reading comprehension is an essential skill for

Pakistani students because it is a medium of instruction, a compulsory subject from
the school level to the graduate level, most of the text and reference books are in
English, majority of the websites offer written content in English. Moreover, most of
the research papers in Pakistan and internationally are in English, and many national
and international magazines and newspapers are in English. It is very crucial to make
Pakistani students realize that reading skills have a significant role both in their
academic and professional life. Reading is one of the most important language skills
for those who learn English as a second or foreign language or for academic or
professional success (Dorkchandra, 2010).

Literature Review

Reading skills are considered an integral and lifelong skill because of their
need (Küçükoğlu, H., 2013). They are receptive skills (Bhatti, 2016), and the goal “is
to construct text meaning based on visually encoded information” (Koda, 2007, p.1).
Reading is considered a self-discovery and an interactive process. In this process, the
reader reads the material by using both cognitive and metacognitive strategies to
gain new knowledge and meaning. (Hellyer, Robinson, & Sherwood, 2001; Kalayci,
2012). Scott and Saaiman (2016) also state that “reading is an indispensable skill and is
fundamentally interrelated with educational success (p. 2)”.

Reading also helps the reader to gain new information and to learn new
concepts. The main purpose of reading is to expose “the students to new vocabulary,
new sentences, and different registers”. Reading also guides the learner to use the
language in different ways. Reading is a mandatory ingredient of language learning
because it helps the students to study all other subjects and gain good marks (Karanja
2015).

Comprehension on the other side is a product that comes out in the form of a
mental representation of the textual information when readers are done with the
reading. (Duke and Pearson, 2002). Readers must have a certain range of abilities and
capacities to understand the text. The capacities include (i) cognitive capacities that
are based on learners’ attention, memory, critical analytic ability, inferencing,
visualization ability, (ii) motivation (a purpose for reading, an interest in the content
being read, self-efficacy as a reader), (iii) and various types of knowledge included
vocabulary, domain and topic knowledge, linguistic and discourse knowledge,
knowledge of specific comprehension strategies. Reading comprehension is among
the basic and mandatory skills that should be taught to learners in the first years of
elementary school (Papatga & Ersoy,2016) because reading comprehension is all

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 English Language Reading Comprehension of
Pakistani HSSC/HSC Level Students: Perceptions and Performance

about understanding and getting the clear views or messages that the writer wants
to convey intentionally to his readers (May, & Rizzardi, 2002).

The purpose of reading comprehension is to relate new information with the

previous knowledge and expand the knowledge. English language teachers do play
a significant role in creating an environment for students where students can learn
more and improve their performance in reading comprehension skills. They should
teach students reading strategies and encourage them to read and have them practice
reading comprehension through exercises that will ultimately help them enhance
their reading comprehension. (Muliawati; 2017). On the other side, students
themselves do not find interest in reading due to over-dependency on electronic and
social devices, students do not enjoy and experience pleasure while reading the
books. They prefer to read the précis of the books, and stories novel than self-reading,
and ultimately, they encounter problems at their higher level of education due to
poor reading comprehension skills (Boakye, 2012; Niven, 2005).

Material and Methods

Sample

Sixty students of HSSC pre-medical students and four English lecturers from
a selected college participated in this study. Thirty students were from the Federal
Board (FBISE) and thirty students from the Karachi0 Board (BIEK) two intact groups
of XII Pre Medical. Moreover, four English language teachers and twenty students
took part in semi-structured interviews.

Table 1
Participants of Semi-Structured Interviews
Participants’ Information No. of participants
English Teachers 4
Federal Board Students 10
Karachi Board Students 10

Table 1
Participants for Quantitative Data
Name of Boards No. of participants Discipline
Federal Board 30 Pre-Medical
Karachi Board 30 Pre-Medical

Research Instruments

The interview protocol was developed and sent to four experienced English
lecturers for expert validation. The experts’ recommendations were incorporated
before data collection. The qualitative data were collected through semi-structured
focus group interviews with twenty students and four English language teachers in
the college. The interviews were transcribed and the member checking technique was
employed.

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Data for this mixed-method study were collected with the help of reading
comprehension tests and semi-structured interviews. To assess the reading
performance of the students, reading passages were adapted from the Cambridge
website (https://papacambridge.com/). The passages measured vocabulary,
summary, inferences, and factual information

Ethical Consideration

The ethical consideration was also adhered to, consent of the participants was
taken, and participants and college identities is kept confidential all participants were
assigned a code as discussed in the findings section.

Results and Discussion

This section covers both qualitative and quantitative findings. The first part
comprises qualitative findings based on the data collected from four focus group
students’ interviews and one focus group English Language teacher’s interview. The
data collected through interviews were categorized and analysed according to
Seldana's (2009) proposed thematic analysis.

Students’ Perceptions

Students’ perceptions were recorded through focus group interviews. Each

group consisted of 5 students; hence four groups of students had twenty members.
Two groups of students represented FBISE and the other two were from BIEK.
Students’ perceptions have been categorized into four major themes: teaching
reading skills, reading practice, reading challenges, and students’ preferred reading
topics. For participants anonymity codes were assigned to participants: Students
from the Federal Board were assigned FBISES with numerical 1 to 10 and students
from the Karachi board were given BIEKS code with numerical 1 to 10. For example,
the response of Federal board students was recorded as FBISES1, on the other hand,
the response of Karachi board students was recorded as BIEKS1.

Teaching Reading Skills

According to students, teachers help them to read passages and learn new
vocabulary FBISES2, “the teacher helped us through vocabulary and its meanings”,
FBISES3, “teacher helped us through the passage, it helped us to explain the meaning
moreover, the teacher used to explain the passage and we read it”.

However, some of the students highlighted that they were not given equal
attention in reading class, rather the students who were already good at reading skills
were asked to read the paragraph aloud and the rest were just listeners. The students
further mentioned that even comprehension questions (oral questions in class) were
also asked from the students who had good comprehension. FBISES1, “Teachers prefer
those students who are confident enough to read [aloud in class] and later on she explains the
paragraph. They (teachers) used to ask questions from those students who were able to give
answers of the comprehension”.

A few of the Karachi Board’s students stated that the teacher guided them in
reading. The teacher explained the key points of the chapter before reading the text

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 English Language Reading Comprehension of
Pakistani HSSC/HSC Level Students: Perceptions and Performance

and each paragraph was explained, which helped them to comprehend the chapter.
BIEKS3. “Teachers used to teach the chapter like a story that helps us to remain in our mind”.

Reading Practice

Most students limit their reading to textbooks only and the purpose of
reading was to prepare for exams and get good marks. FBISES3, “we practice our
reading skills through textbooks because I think at this stage we don’t need other external
knowledge or extra knowledge because we go through federal board paper just to gain marks
& nothing else. So we go through textbook only”.

Karachi Board students highlighted that they usually do the reading practice
in the class under the supervision of the English teacher and take help from the
teacher in word meaning and also consult a dictionary. BIEKS6, “The basic thing in
reading is difficult vocabulary. First, we take out that word & write its meanings. If we are
not able to remember those words, we memorize the meaning of that particular word. That is
the way I do things”.

However, some students read from different sources on the internet to

improve their reading skills. FBISES2: “I search on the internet & I watch movies with
subtitles so that I get to know about new words & also search about them that’s how I practice
reading skills”.

Reading Challenges

While sharing the difficulties usually they face in reading class, students
considered vocabulary the most difficult part. FBISES1, “There were some difficult
words, & difficult phrases in the book and that were difficult to understand”.

Students’ Preferred Reading Topics

According to FBISE and BIEK students, they like those chapters which are
based on science and fiction.

SK3,” there were some chapters that were quite informative like science & scientist &
there were some chapters that were so boring … & there was a novel, the prisoner of Zenda
was too much interesting”.

Students also liked those stories and poems that carry the moral at the end.
Students also liked the chapters that had a moral. BIEKS8, “I like two chapters: The
Devoted Friend, in that chapter I have learned that what true friendship is so it was very good
and, has moral & 2nd chapter which I liked a lot was The Day the Dam Broke”. Students
demanded more novels should be included in reading BIEKS6, “In our curriculum,
novels should be included. Novels not only freshen our minds but also let us know the meaning
of difficult words according to the context.”

Teachers Perceptions

Four English Language teachers from the college, who made the total number
of English language teachers, participated in the focus group interview. Like
students’ focus group interviews, this interview was also recorded, transcribed,

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coded, categorized, and analysed according to Seldana's (2009) proposed thematic

analysis. The teacher’s responses were also recorded and transcribed. The teachers
were also assigned a code ET with a number 1-4. Based on thematic analysis these
findings are grouped into three main themes i.e. the importance of reading skills, the
Examination system, and other problems.

Importance of Reading Skills

The teachers realized the importance of reading skills in language learning.

All of them stated that reading skills are important for students ET4: “Yes reading
comprehension skill is one of the most important parts of language learning”. ET1, “Yes …,
reading skills are very important in education” ET3, “if they are not able to understand what
they are reading then they will not be able to reproduce It [language).” ET3, “if they
[students] are not taking in the language or acquiring the language through reading they
definitely would be lacking in giving the output of that language.” Teachers also consider
reading comprehension skills important for vocabulary, idea and information
development. ET2, “Developing the habit of reading among students is important … that
would increase their vocabulary. Reading not only will bring more vocabulary but also bring
more ideas … they will be getting a lot of knowledge as well”.

Examination System

The teachers believe that the weak examination system is also a hurdle in
developing students’ reading skills. The same questions are usually repeated in
exams every year, hence most of the students usually prepare from past papers and
do not even read the complete textbook. ET3, “In BIEK the paper pattern I guess is
one of the reasons for the students not having reading habits of the textbook. Because
mostly paper is set from past year papers, and students prefer to go for selective
study”.

The teachers further state, Examination system encourages memorization or

even reading comprehension answers. ET2, “the paper pattern doesn't require them
[students] to go through the text [text book] simply it requires to memorize a few questions
[answers] which are repeated in the past papers.” The last point about the examination
system that teachers raised was teachers provided notes. ELT 3, “students are habitual
of spoon-feeding in the form of notes provided by their teachers so they are never put into that
task working on the text so when it comes to text and we give them task to read the text they
simply get frustrated”.

Other Problems

The teachers shared students face difficulties in reading comprehension. ET4:

“the answers they [students] write, they [answers] are not according to the questions
it shows they are lacking in reading comprehension”.

Teachers are also of the opinion that extensive reading habit is not developed
among students. ET2, “This habit of reading book other than the course book, this
habit is not inculcated in students”.

Finally, teachers also blamed social media for reducing reading interest
among students. ET2, “we face difficulties in inculcating reading habit and I think
the social media… is the big hurdle in this because instead of using their time in

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Pakistani HSSC/HSC Level Students: Perceptions and Performance

reading they prefer using social media … that is the great difficulty for us to motivate
students to read a book”.ET3, “it is a diversion from the library to social media.

Reading Comprehension Performance

The findings derived from Quantitative data are discussed below:

Table 3
Descriptive Analysis Of Reading Comprehension Test
Groups No. of Mean Standard
Participants Deviation
Federal Board 30 20.1333 2.33021
Karachi Board 30 15.8000 4.52121

As illustrated in table 3, students of FBISE performed better in reading skills

with M=20.1333, as compared to students of the Karachi board having a mean M=
15.8000. The standard deviation of FBISE students SD= 2.33021 is lower also than
BIEK students SD=4.52121.

Table 4
Independent T-Test Results for Reading Comprehension
Groups No. of Participants Mean Standard Deviation
Federal Board 30 20.1333 2.33021
Karachi Board 30 15.8000 4.52121

The reading comprehension test was analysed through the Independent t-

test, the reason to apply the independent t-test was to find out the differences
between both boards i.e. FBISE and BIEK in their reading comprehension skills. Table
4 clearly illustrates the p-value (0.004) which is less than 0.005. The results also
confirm the t value i.e. 4.333 which is greater than the critical value i.e. 2.021 on the
degree of freedom (df) of 58. When the t value is greater than the critical value, the
means are statistically different. Keeping in view the independent t-test results, we
can state that FBISE students performed better on the reading comprehension test
than the BIEK students.

The students of FBISE and BIEK revealed that while teaching reading skills,
teachers help them to find out difficult vocabulary and their meanings however,
sometimes, according to them, teachers prefer those students aloud reading in class
who are good at reading to save time. The same opinion is highlighted by Muliawati,
2017) that teachers do play an essential role in creating an environment for students
where students can learn more and improve their performance in reading
comprehension skills. He also suggests teachers help students with Reading
Comprehension skills and tell the art of finding hidden meaning from text.

Most of the students read textbooks to secure good marks in HSSC/HSC

instead improve their reading skills; they also memorize answers for examinations.
This notion is also supported by (Ahmad, I, Rehman, K.U., Ali, A, Khan, I, Khan, F.A.,
2014) that the examination system only asses students’ memory and rote learning.
However, some of the students highlighted that they read from different resources
such as eBooks or movie subtitles to improve their reading skills.

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Students also revealed their preferred reading topics that should be included
in their recommended reading texts. They like to read science fiction literature,
moralistic stories, and novels. The contents of the books will help them to find
pleasure in reading and ultimately their skills will improve. Boakye, (2017) also
supported the idea that reading for pleasure can also contribute to enhancing the
reading comprehension skills in the classroom.

All English language teachers agreed that reading plays a pivotal role to get
the mastery of the language and it has significant effects on students’ performance.
They also think that reading is one of those important skills that should be given
significance from early schooling as it helps the students in their higher studies. The
idea of focusing on reading skills from elementary school is also supported by
Papatga & Ersoy (2016).

According to the teachers, FBISE students are more independent, self-

learners, and good readers than BIEK students. The teachers highlighted that the
BIEK HSC examination paper pattern is a major reason for BIEK Students’ weak
performance because it is based on rote learning. Therefore, most students prepare
for exams from past papers by memorizing the question answers to get good marks.
Students prefer to prepare English papers either from past papers or guess papers as
Rote learning/cramming is the only approach to evaluate students in SSC (Secondary
School Certificate) and HSC/HSSC (Higher Secondary Certificate/ Higher
Secondary School Certificate) which cause poor language skills (Ahmed, A &
Ahmad, N. 2017; Christi & Afzaal, 2005)

Teachers also highlighted other problems: students usually spend most of the
time on social media and do not find any pleasure in reading books, which leads to
having weak reading skills, all teachers agreed that reading is a complex skill,
therefore it should be focused more and more. The quantitative findings of this study
revealed that FBISE students’ reading performance is better than BIEK students,
which is also supported by the teachers’ comments as discussed in the above
paragraph.

Conclusion

This study concludes that English language teachers help students in Reading
comprehension. But, students who are already good at reading skills are usually
given more opportunities in reading activites, as compared to the students with with
less reading skills. Because, reading skills are essential for Pakistani English language
learners, hence English languge teachers should focus more their reading skills.

Recommendation

This research investigation suggests that teachers should persuade students

for pleasure reading and reading for comprehension, instead of reading to pass the
examination only. Similarly, recommended reading texts should include topics of
students' interest. Furthermore, students struggling in reading comprehension
should be guided more in reading comprehension activities.

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Pakistani HSSC/HSC Level Students: Perceptions and Performance

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