Learner autonomy in learning English reading skills

 ability and another result was that 
proficient and autonomous readers were more 
confident in dealing with complex reading activities. 
Recently, Channuan (2015) carried out a 
research study on promoting learner autonomy 
through an extensive reading (ER) program 
among second-year undergraduate students of 
Naresuan University in Thai Land. Thirty-seven 
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undergraduate students who were enrolled in the 
Reading Academic English course were classified 
into high and low proficiency groups based on 
their general English reading pretest mean scores. 
Quantitative data were then collected through 
a general English reading ability pre- and post-
test and a learner autonomy training strategies 
questionnaire. After the 10-week ER program, 
the test scores showed that the students’ English 
reading ability was significantly improved. The 
findings from the questionnaire indicated students’ 
frequent use of cognitive and metacognitive 
strategies in ER as well as an increase in their 
positive attitudes toward both reading and learner 
autonomy. It could be concluded that ER enhances 
reading ability and promotes learner autonomy.
Louis and Pereira’s (2003) conducted a study 
about remedial EFL students in an EST (English 
for Science and Technology) reading course at the 
Simon Blivara University in Caracas, Venezuela. 
Most of their students failed the regular courses 
and many was not confident with read in foreign 
language. In an attempt to motivate their students 
and help them find their own inner potential, they 
turned to the research done in motivation, and 
learning styles. As they believed students played 
a decisive role in their own learning process, 
students were allowed to choose the reading 
activities they considered most beneficial and as 
fear of traditional type reading test was high among 
them, portfolios and contracts were also offered as 
an alternative form of assessment with regard to 
the feedback obtained from their students, 96% 
thought that the alternative assessment used to 
evaluate their academic achievement in reading 
comprehension during the parallel remedial 
course had had a positive influence on them. 
The majority of the students (78%) said that they 
were under less pressure and could work better in 
class. Obviously, thanks to autonomous learning 
strategies, the students became more confident and 
studied better.
 In summary, the previous studies under review 
indicate a deficiency in the studies about learner 
autonomy in learning English reading skills in 
Vietnam, this leads to the study being conducted. 
In addition, the questionnaire from Dang Tan Tin 
(2012) and the interview questions from Borg 
and Saleh Al-Busaidi (2012) in the review were 
adapted for this study. 
3. METHODOLOGY
3.1 Research design
Mixed method approach (Cresswell, 2005) which 
combines both quantitative and qualitative methods 
has been employed in this project. A questionnaire 
survey (quantitative) was used for collecting data 
for the perceptions of students and practices, 
while the in-depth interviews (qualitative) are 
to investigate the students’ thoughts and habits, 
and later to triangulate with the data from the 
questionnaire.
In the first phrase, quantitative data were 
collected from the questionnaire being delivered 
to all first–year students, i.e., 99 students at the 
university under study to identify their perceptions 
of learner autonomy and the practices as revealed 
in English reading. 
Based on what were learnt from the first stage, 
the researchers adapted the interview questions 
from Borg and Saleh Al-Busaidi (2012) and Dang 
Tan Tin (2012) to deepen the data gained from the 
questionnaire.
3.2. The subjects
The participants of the present research were 
ninety-nine first-year English students at the 
researched university. They are from 18 to 19 
years old and have spent at least 7 to at most 10 
years learning English at both secondary and high 
school. They have never been given any training in 
learner autonomy in learning reading skills. By the 
time the researchers gathered the data for this study, 
they finished the second term of the school year.
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The eleven students for the in-depth interviews 
were chosen from the ninety-nine participants by 
their scores of reading skills (i.e, according to 
proficient, middle and bottom levels) in the first 
semester. They were representative of first year 
top-, middle- and bottom- students respectively.
3.3. Questionnaire design
The questionnaire is designed to answer the first 
question “What are the student’s perceptions on 
‘learner autonomy’?” and the second question 
“What are the students’ actual practices in EFL 
reading learning?”. The type of semi-structure 
was used to gather information in greater depth. 
The items of questionnaire are adapted from 
Ustunluoglu (2009) with the study entitled 
“Autonomy in language learning: do students 
take responsibility for their learning”. The main 
purpose is to investigate the students’ perceptions 
on learner autonomy and autonomous strategies. 
This questionnaire comprises three parts, 
i.e., the background of the students, students’ 
perceptions on learner autonomy & students’ 
practices in EFL reading, how these practices reveal 
about their learner autonomy and autonomous 
strategies of first– year English majors of the 
university under research, when the students used 
the strategies to master reading skills. 
In the first part, the researchers aimed to gather 
the information relating to the participants’ gender, 
age, living area, phone number. In the second 
part, nine statements are given to the students 
to check their knowledge about the learner 
autonomy. They circle among five choices on a 
five – point Likert scale (strongly agree =1, agree 
= 2, neutral =3, disagree =4, and strongly disagree 
=5) where appropriate, after that the perceptions 
of the autonomy in learning reading skills with 
ten items for students to put a tick to one in three 
choices where appropriate. In the third part, the 
questionnaire contains thirty items, i.e., responses 
to each item were measured in a five-point Likert 
scale (strongly agree =1, agree = 2, neutral =3, 
disagree =4, and strongly disagree =5), students 
marked one choice among the statements. The 
questions focus on learners’ practices in learning 
reading skills, specifically, the aspects of learning 
autonomy practices or strategies such as planning 
learners’ learning, setting out learning objectives, 
deciding learning methods, choosing learning 
materials and learner’s self-evaluation in the 
processes of learning reading skills.
The table 3.1 below shows the main content of 
each section of the questionnaire and the purpose 
of each section.
Table 3.1. Main content of the questionnaire and 
the purpose of each section
Part Content Purpose
1 The background of the participants an overview 
of the 
participants
2 Statements about the participants’ perceptions 
on learner autonomy in learning reading skills.
- Part 2.1
item 1, item 2, item 3, item 4, item 5, item 6, 
item 7, item 8 and item 9.
- Part 2.2 
item 1, item 2, item 3, item 4, item 5, item 6, 
item 7, item 8, item 9 and item 10.
To 
understand 
the 
students’ 
perceptions
3 Statements about practices in EFL reading 
reveal about their learning autonomy.
- There are 8 items about cognitive strategy:
item 1, item 2, item 3, item 4, item 5, item 28, 
item 29 and item 30.
- There are 19 items about metacognitive 
strategy:
item 6, item 7, item 8, item 9, item 10, item 11, 
item 12, item 13, item 14, item 15, item 16, item 
17, item 18, item 19 and item 20, item 21, item 
22, item 23, item 24
- There are 3 items about compensation 
strategy:
item 25, item 26, item 27
To gain the 
practices 
revealing 
in English 
reading 
The data analysis focuses on what respondents 
assessed learner autonomy and reading strategies 
52 KHOA HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ QUÂN SỰNo. 19 (5/2019)
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in the process of learning reading skills. The 
questionnaire was distributed face-to-face to the 
students by the researchers. To make sure that the 
students answer the questionnaire by themselves, 
they were asked to complete the questionnaire 
in the class after a language period in a large 
lecture hall. To avoid any misunderstanding, we 
explained and gave clear instruction as well as the 
purpose of the questionnaire. In addition, we were 
with the students during the time they filled out the 
questionnaire to give any necessary explanation 
or assistance. They were informed that the 
questionnaire was not a test and there is no right or 
wrong answer. Therefore, the students just needed 
to give their own opinion. It took about 15 minutes 
for the students to complete the questionnaire. 
After, the data were transferred to a computer and 
stored in a data file and printed out in hard copy 
form for analysis.
3.4. In-depth Interviews 
With the expectation that by using interviews, 
a researcher can freely use prompts to obtain 
response clarity or additional information (Burke 
& Larry, 2000), face-to-face interviews with the 
researchers ‘were adopted to find out more about 
students’ perceptions and practices at a university 
in Vietnam. This instrument is used to triangulate 
the data about students’ perception and practices 
which were disclosed via the questionnaire survey.
In this research, we chose face-to-face in-
depth interviews, a lot of extra information can 
be added to the verbal answer of the interviewees 
on a question (Raymond, 2006). Additionally, 
interview questions are structured and based on 
the information from the questionnaires, aiming to 
clarify data from the questionnaire. 
3.5. Data Collection procedure
The data collection procedure was taken place 
around one semester at the university under 
research, which was equivalent to 15 continuous 
weeks. The questionnaire instrument was used in 
to investigate the students’ perception about LA at 
the end of the semester. The questionnaire were 
delivered to 99 students and the main content of 
the questionnaire was about the students’ thoughts 
about LA and their practices of learning reading 
skills including strategies they used to learn. The 
questionnaire results were collected and the data 
were analyzed by the use of SPSS program.
Finally, the researchers chose 11 students 
to take part in an in-depth interview which took 
place in an empty classroom to avoid disturbance. 
The interview with each student lasted in two 
hours (about 11 minutes for each participants). 
Before being interview fifteen minutes, the 
participants were given a list of questions and 
gave any explanation if necessary. In addition, 
the participants were informed about the purpose 
as well as the nature of the interview. They were 
explained that there were no right or wrong answers 
in the interview and their answers would have no 
effect on their study results. Therefore, they were 
encouraged to say what they really did and to 
answer as honestly as they could. The answers of 
the interviews were recorded in Vietnamese and 
translated into English. 
3.6. Data analysis procedure
The data were analyzed by “qualitative content 
and analysis” which is “a research method for the 
subjective interpretation of the content of text data 
through the systematic classification process of 
coding and identifying theme and patterns” (Hsieh 
& Shannon 2005, P.1278). Finally, the steps of 
data analysis are presented in the following steps.
The data analysis consisted of four steps, which 
are 1) transcribing the data, 2) pre-coding and 
coding, 3) producing a form of data display, and 
4) interpreting the data and drawing conclusions. 
These four steps were adopted from four phrases of 
the analytical process suggested by Dornyei (2007, 
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 LANGUAGE TEACHING METHODOLOGY v
pp.246-257). In addition, suggestions on analyzing 
coded data by Rubin and Rubin (2005, pp.201-
273), Atkinson (1998, pp. 54-58), and Seidman 
(2006, pp.112-131) were also taken into account.
4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
4.1. Results from the questionnaire
4.1.1 Results of the perceptions of the concept 
“learner autonomy”
As can be seen from figure 4.1, the percentage 
of students understood the concept of the learner 
autonomy at the beginning of the course occupies 
88.3% and the minority (11.7 %) still did not show 
their awareness of the learner autonomy.
4.1.2 Students’ perception of responsibility.
at the beginning of the semester and 8.5% teachers 
are supposed to be responsible for progress during 
the semester of learning reading. 
The results were also illustrated through figure 4.2.
4.1.3. Practices of learning reading skills
In order to identify the practices of learning 
reading skills, the researchers investigated how the 
participants learnt reading skills, specifically the 
strategies they used consisting of metacognitive, 
cognitive and compensation.
The cognitive strategies (COG) were used the 
most frequently by the students. They read the 
topic which attracted their attention (41.5%) and 
share the knowledge of science and technology 
with their classmates (39.4%). Moreover, they 
also looked for reading resources on the internet 
(37.2%). It can be seen from the results that the 
participants chose largely the topics of reading 
exercises and exploited reading resources on 
the internet. They spent less time on looking for 
reading documentary in the library.
The results were also shown through figure 4.3.
Researched students also used the 
metacognitive strategies in the process of learning 
reading skill. The statistics below describes the 
use of metacognitive strategies (MET) by ninety-
nine students, most of MET strategies. 
Figure 4.1. Student’s perception of the concept 
‘learner autonomy’
This graph gives an overview of the students’ 
perception of responsibility. It is noticeable that 
the students stick to the evaluation of the students’ 
progress every week and choosing reading materials 
for learning to their foremost priority (over 50%) 
whereas the students describe the teachers’ 
responsibility such as identifying the weakness 
of the students in style of reading exercises and 
choosing outside class tasks to improve reading 
skills as the most important activity. Only 3.2 % 
students decide the objectives in learning reading 
Figure 4.2. Student’s perception of responsibility 
in learner autonomy