INTEGRATING NEW LITERACY INSTRUCTION TO SUPPORT THE ONLINE READING COMPREHENSION PERFORMANCE OF UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS

Abstract

In a world that is increasingly mediated by Information Communication Technologies (ICTs), the skills, competencies, and knowledge underpinning new literacies have become ever more important for our young generation. To be regarded as ‘fully literate’ in today’s world, readers must be digitally literate. Drawing upon the theoretical framework of the New Literacies, the present study aims to examine the impact of new literacies instruction on the online reading comprehension performance of Pakistani undergraduate university students. A pre-test posttest control group quasi-experimental design was used to investigate how far an online reading comprehension instructional programme improves the online reading comprehension levels of students. The study was conducted at three public sector universities in Multan, Pakistan. One hundred and fifty undergraduate university students (n=150) participated in the quasi-field experiment. The participants were assigned to both the control and experimental groups using a stratified random sampling technique, with 75 participants (n=75) in each condition. The participants of the experimental group participated in eight weekly sessions integrating new literacies of online reading comprehension. The data was collected through an Online Reading Comprehension Assessment (ORCA-I). The data were analyzed descriptively using the software package SPSS. The findings of this study indicate that a statistically significant increase (p =.000) in posttest ORCA-I scores in the experimental group was likely to be produced by the online reading comprehension instructional programme. It is hoped that the findings of this study, along with future replications, will have implications for pedagogical practice by encouraging Pakistani teachers to integrate the new literacies of online reading comprehension into their regular language teaching. It is also hoped that the results will prompt national curricular development bodies to recognize the potential of online comprehension instructional programmes.