Collaborative learning as a discourse strategy for enhancing academic reading skills amongst first year university students

Abstract

Academic reading appears to be a daunting task for most first year students, who are still fresh from high school. Research has shown that these students lack the necessary academic reading skills needed when entering institutions of higher learning. Students sometimes struggle to acquire these skills when they are alone. The study addressed the academic reading abilities which are essential for students to succeed at universities and the use of group strategy as a means to empower them to acquire these skills. The study adopted a qualitative approach. The principles of Collaborative learning as an enhancing strategy were applied in this study. Students were divided into groups and allocated tasks which meant to lead them to acquire the academic reading skills. Questionnaires were distributed to students to get their views on the application of collaborative learning in their lecture halls. The results indicated an improvement in the acquisition of academic reading strategies such as inference, comprehension, problem solving and critical reading skills.

Keywords: academic reading, collaborative learning, academic reading skills, group strategy