SUMMARY REPORT EXECUTED ON

TITLE Top down, bottom up & classroom reading anxiety and their effect on
reading performance of undergraduate engineering students in Pakistan
AUTHORS & Ashfaque Hussain Soomro Department of Basic Sciences, Mehran University
AFFILIATION of Engineering and Technology, Jamshoro, Pakistan
Imran Khan Department of English Language, College of Arts, Hail University,
Hail, Saudi Arabia, and
Muhammad Younus Department of Education and Learning Sciences, Iqra
University, Karachi, Pakistan

PRESENTED BY

NAME

ROLL NO

CLASS
 SUMMARY

Introduction and Literature Review

This research opt the idea of knowing the fact regarding EFL reading anxiety of first-year
undergraduate engineering students and its effect on their reading performance in a public sector
engineering university in Pakistan. It specifically aims to explore their top-down, bottom-up and
classroom EFL reading anxiety. Basically what are these terms Reading and Listening are both
receptive skills, but the difficulties faced by students when reading or listening to a text vary. In
reading, we can receive information “at our own pace”: if a word / expressions are unknown, the
reader can stop, read again, and take their time to understand what is written. Written text is
generally more standardized than spoken text - although there might be differences in
spelling, vocabulary, and even use of grammar depending on where you are, spoken English is
much more varied than written English. Accents and regionalisms are definitely more present in
oral speech, and these may pose difficulties in comprehension. Because of the reasons mentioned
above, students might get anxious and apprehensive when trying to understand spoken text.
When students read or listen in their native language, they naturally employ strategies that help
them decode the text. Also, their native knowledge of the language helps them comprehend the
text with ease. In a second language, we need to consciously employ strategies (which we talk
about in these posts). Apart from this, our brain finds a way to break down and process the
information it receives. These processes are called top-down and bottom-up.
The literature review is gathered very carefully with coherence and idea of the topic from
various, vary recent and related articles in the light of empirical evidences of previous researches
of different authors. Further more

This study followed to answer the research question as mentioned below

 How well EFL reading performance can be predicted from a combination of three
variables: bottom-up, top-down and classroom reading anxiety among the Pakistani first-
year engineering university students?

This study was predicted to be explanatory in nature where in effect of independent variables on
dependent variable were predicted. The hypothesized model to predict the reading anxiety effect
on first-year undergraduate students’ reading performance is shown in the following equation:
RP ¼a0þb1TRAþb2BRAþb3CRAþe
In the above equation, RP, TRA, BRA and CRA indicate reading performance, top-down reading
anxiety, bottom-up reading anxiety and classroom reading anxiety, respectively. Moreover, 0
represents constant and e shows error term in the model.
 
There were three hypothesis indicated in tis research article which are been mentioned below,

H1. Top-down reading anxiety has a significant positive impact on students’ reading
performance.

H2. Bottom-up reading anxiety has a significant positive impact on students’ reading
performance.
H3. Classroom reading anxiety has a significant positive impact on students’ reading
performance.

Which ended to result as the bottom-up reading anxiety and the classroom reading anxiety have a
significant negative impact on the reading performance of the first-year undergraduate
engineering students of a Pakistani university. However, top-down reading anxiety has an
insignificant negative impact on the reading performance of university students.

Research Design/methodology/approach

The data for this study was drawn from first-year engineering students numbering 200 to explore
their reading anxiety at their class room. To measure students’ EFL reading anxiety 20-item
questionnaire developed by Zoghi and Alivandivafa (2014) was used, while an IELTS academic
reading test was used to measure their reading performance.

These items were rated on a four-point Likert scale from 1 that reliability was acceptable
(George and Mallery, 2003; Nunnaly, 1978; Riazi, 1999). The data were analyzed through
applying various test like first of all the instrument’s reliability was measured using Cronbach’s
α. Pearson’s correlation among variables was also observed before exploratory factor analysis.
Later, factor analysis was executed which helped in sorting and grouping of variables and their
dimensions. Finally, regression analysis was used for the model fitness (Perry, 2017).
Exploratory factorial analysis and multiple regression analysis were tested to determine which
type of reading anxiety has a significant effect on students’ reading performance.

The model of the study and the Cronbach’s α. Pearson’s are given below

Data analysis and results

The results were divided according to the independent and dependent variables firstly

1. Reading performance (dependent variable)

IELTS academic test was chosen to measure the reading performance because it is a trusted
evidence of English language proficiency all over the world for education, professional and
immigration purposes. In addition to its international reputation, it is the most widely recognized
English test across the globe due to the high-quality control criteria (Uysal, 2010; Bax, 2013).
The reading test required the students to read written passages and respond to corresponding
questions. Reading performance ranged from 1 to 3, with 3 being the highest score reflecting
better performance and 1 as the lowest. The reading passages in the IELTS test consisted of three
expository passages varying in the levels from easy to difficult, which were followed by 40
questionsofdifferenttypes,forexample,MCQs,shortquestions,yes/noquestions,true-false and fill-
in-the-blanks.

2. Top-down reading anxiety (independent variable)

Five items were adopted from Zoghi and Alivandivafa (2014). The internal consistency
coefficient (Cronbach’s α) for this scale was α¼0.69 (five items). In top-down reading anxiety,
the students’ inability to recognize text details and main idea gist was measured.

3. Bottom-up reading anxiety (independent variable)

Bottom-up reading anxiety was measured through ten items adopted from Zoghi and
Alivandivafa (2014). The internal consistency coefficient (Cronbach’s α) for this scale was
α¼0.82 (ten items).

4. Classroom reading anxiety (independent variable)

Classroom reading anxiety was measured through five items adopted from Zoghi and
Alivandivafa (2014). The internal consistency coefficient (Cronbach’s α) for this scale was
α¼0.70 (five items).

Exploratory factor analysis

A Varimax with Kaiser Normalization rotation method was performed. According to this given
table the results are as given

1. The Kaiser–Meyer–Olkin measure of sampling adequacy directed that the strength of the
relationships among three variables was significant as shown in the Table III.
The obtained pattern matrix is displayed in Table IV.

1. Items with factor loadings of above 0.40 are shown only. The first factor was strong,
with a high eigenvalue of 2.58, and it accounted for
19.90percentofthevarianceinthedataset.
2. The second factor had an eigen value of 2.23 and accounted for an additional 17.19
percent of the variance.
3. The eigen values for the last factor was 2.16 which accounted for a further 16.63 percent
of the total variance.
4. Factor analysis of the items of top-down, bottom-up and classroom reading anxiety used
in the current study explains the underlying structure of anxiety at tertiary level in
Pakistani context.

The component pattern matrix in Table IV revealed factor one to consist of five items.

5. Factor loading results in Table IV show that seven itemsnamely,TRA2, BRA2, BRA3,
BRA6, BRA7, BRA8 and BRA9 were not contributing to a simple factor structure; so
they were eliminated because they failed meeting a minimum criterion of having atleast
a primary factor loading of 0.4 or above.
6. TheCRAwithallitsfive items remained intact. In summary, the three factors found were
“Bottom-Up Reading Anxiety”, “Top-Down Reading Anxiety” and “Classroom Reading
Anxiety.” The identified factors are ready for further analyses.

Pearson correlation

Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient was computed to assess the relationship between
the reading anxiety variables before hypotheses testing. Table V shows means, standard
deviations, and inter-correlations for reading performance and its predictors. It is evident from
Table V that there is a negative small (Cohen, 1988, pp. 79-81) correlation found between the
variables RP and TRA (r¼−0.121, n¼200, p¼0.089), RP and BRA (r¼−0.297, n¼200,
p¼0.000), RP and CRA (r¼−0.371, n¼200, p¼0.000), TRA and
BRA(r¼0.207,n¼200,p¼0.003),TRA and CRA(r¼0.158,n¼200,p¼0.026),BRA and CRA
(r¼0.218, n¼200, p¼0.002).

Hypotheses testing

After ensuring basic parametric assumptions, simultaneous multiple regression was carried out to
determine the overall relationship among top-down reading anxiety, bottom-up reading anxiety,
and classroom reading anxiety (predictors) and reading performance (dependent variable),and to
investigate how these predictors contribute to predict students’ reading performance. Multiple
regression is an extension of simple linear regression. It is used when we want to predict the
value of a variable based on the value of two or more other variables. The variable we want to
predict is called the dependent variable (or sometimes, the outcome, target or criterion variable).
The variables we are using to predict the value of the dependent variable are called the
independent variables (or sometimes, the predictor, explanatory or regressor variables).

Limitations of the study

 The current study collected data from students of one public sector engineering university
and all the participants were from engineering discipline only so the results is only
generalized for that university only.
 Some of the participants might not have been familiar with the IELTS reading test
pattern, and their reading performance might have been negatively affected due to this
unfamiliarity with the test pattern during the data collection for the current study.
 Future research might be investigated on the relationship between EFL reading anxiety
and reading performance among students of private sector universities as well as students
of urban universities of disciplines other than engineering to get more generalizable
results.
 In addition, future researchers might draw samples from school and college level students
of EFL classrooms as well to investigate the relationship between EFL anxiety and
reading performance.
 The present study did not find a significant impact of top-down EFL reading anxiety on
students’ reading performance which also needs to be further investigated in future
research.

Implications of the study theoretical as well as practical

 The study has some important implications for EFL/ESL teacher’s as well material
developers.
 EFL/ESL teachers need to recognize reading anxiety as a barrier to reading skill
development and adopt pedagogical strategies to address the causes of students’ reading
anxiety.
 They can choose reading text which is suitable for their students’ level of English
proficiency and cultural background.
  They also need to build a supportive learning environment in their EFL/ESL reading
classroom where both teachers and peers encourage students to develop reading skills and
mistakes are accepted as part of the learning process and not penalized or ridiculed.
 Participation in loud reading activity in the classroom could be made voluntary and weak
learners should be provided differentiated instruction as well as outside the classroom
support to help them reduce their reading anxiety and become proficient readers.

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