Incorporating reading strategies for EFL undergraduate learners in Saudi Arabia: A think-aloud study

Initially, twenty-six undergraduate students majoring in English were assigned into the current study (13 males and 13 females). The students were required to complete a reading comprehension test during a Reading and Vocabulary Building class in one hour. Afterwards, four participants were purposefully selected to take part in a think-aloud session to verbalize all the thoughts and processes going on in their minds while they were taking the test. The think-aloud protocols were then recorded on tapes and their responses transcribed by the researchers later. Data for this research were gathered during the second semester of the academic year 2021-2022. Data were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively. The raw scores obtained from the reading tests were coded and calculated using statistical tool SPSS or Statistical Package for the Social Sciences, used for complex statistical data analysis. Descriptive statistics were reported involving minimum and maximum scores, frequencies, mean scores along with the standard deviation. Moreover, data gathered from the semi-structured interviews and the thinking-aloud sessions were analyzed qualitatively.