The Effects of Sharing SOAR Study Note on English Reading Comprehension

Reading is an important skill for learning, but it is not an easy task, especially for those who study English as a foreign language (EFL). Thus, developing effective strategies to promote English reading comprehension is an essential research issue. Selection, organization, association, and regulation (SOAR) study method is an effective strategy of note-taking based on the theory of the cognitive depiction of the human information processing system. This study thus investigated the effects of sharing SOAR study notes on English reading comprehension. Thirty-nine Grade 8 students from two classes of a junior high school in Taiwan participated in SOAR note-making activity after reading English material online. One class with 22 students was assigned as the control group, which was not allowed to share or read their peers' note after making their note, and another class with 17 students was assigned as the experimental group, which was permitted to read their peers' note and revise their note. Analytical results show that the learners in the experimental group significantly outperformed those in the control group in English reading comprehension. Also, students with field-independent cognitive style or with low prior knowledge who shared the note with their peers made more progress in English reading comprehension than those who did not share the note with their peers.