The Study on English Reading Comprehension Ability of the Fourth-Year Naval Cadets and their Opinions towards Teaching Behaviors in Instructor of English Reading Course

Abstract

The objectives of this research were to 1) analyze confirmatory factor analysis of the fourth-year naval cadets’ English reading comprehension ability 2) study the fourth-year naval cadets’ English reading comprehension ability and 3) study the fourth-year naval cadets’ opinions towards English reading comprehension teaching behaviors. The population was sixty-nine naval cadets selected from the fourth-year level studying their final semester in academic year 2019. The research instruments were two rating-scale questionnaires and an achievement test. The data were statistically analyzed by mean (), standard deviation (), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and one-way analysis of variance (F-test). The findings were as follows: 1) factors of the fourth-year naval cadets’ English reading comprehension ability comprised three components: Factor 1 literal comprehension including 7 indicators, Factor 2 inferential comprehension including 7 indicators and Factor 3 critical comprehension including 7 indicators. There were totally 21 indicators with a range of factors loadings from 0.40 to 0.87, Eigen values from 5.24-20.38 and a cumulative percentage variance at 87.96. 2) the study of the fourth-year naval cadets’ English reading comprehension ability revealed that the average test score was overall at a moderate level. When considering specifically, the average test score of management science section was the highest at a relatively good level, followed by hydrographic engineering section which was at a moderate level. On the other hand, the average test score of hydrographic engineering section was the least at a minimum criterion. 3) the study of the fourth-year naval cadets’ opinions towards English reading comprehension teaching behaviors was found that the mean of English reading comprehension teaching behaviors in all aspects were overall at a moderate level, excluding a personality aspect with its mean at a high level. The result of one-way analysis of variance revealed that there were no statistically significant differences at .05 level in English reading comprehension teaching behaviors when comparing between the section which the fourth-year naval cadets were studying in.