First Advisor

Bowen, Sandy Kay

Second Advisor

Urbach, Jennifer

Document Type

Dissertation

Date Created

8-2017

Abstract

Thailand’s education has not succeeded in meeting the Ministry of Education Thailand’s goals for Thai language. The problem manifests in students’ substandard Thai reading comprehension. Results of the Thailand’s standardized national test showed that students, especially those with economical disadvantages, have performed poorly in Thai reading comprehension for many consecutive years. A confounding factor could be the dearth of evidence-based comprehension instruction in Thai classrooms. This mixed methods study examined the effectiveness of Question-Answer Relationships, which is an evidence-based comprehension strategy, in a Thai reading classroom. Fifty-seven fifth graders and one teacher participated in the study. The quantitative research design was quasi-experimental, including both a control group and pre-post test design. Results showed evidence that the strategy helped the treatment group to significantly improve and outperform the control group in Thai reading comprehension tests. The qualitative research design employed case studies to examine the perspectives about reading comprehension of the treatment group versus the control group, and the teacher’s perspectives before and after teaching Question-Answer Relationships. Qualitative findings yielded insights into the positive impact of the strategy on the treatment group’s and the teacher’s perspectives of reading comprehension. Because this study was the first to investigate Question-Answer Relationships in the Thai language, there is a need for continual future research to build an incremental amount of the strategy’s evidence of success in Thai classrooms.

Keywords

Thai language -- Study and teaching; Reading -- Remedial teaching -- Thailand

Extent

217 pages

Local Identifiers

Mongkolrat_unco_0161D_10581

Rights Statement

Copyright is held by the author.

Share

COinS