INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LIBERAL ARTS, EDUCATION, SOCIAL SCIENCES AND PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF LIBERAL ARTS, EDUCATION,

OF LIBERAL ARTS, EDUCATION, SOCIAL SCIENCES AND PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES

Level of Reading Comprehension

of the Education Students
Mica Elaine M. Bilbao, Connie Lizetthe S. Donguila
and Ma. Juliet G. Vasay
Education, University of the Immaculate Conception,
Davao City, Philippines

ABSTRACT

Reading comprehension is one of the reading competencies that every

student has to develop. However, there are still students who are below the
proficiency level of reading comprehension despite the reading instructions
and strategies provided by the teachers for the improvement of students’
reading comprehension. This quantitative study employed the descriptive
comparative research design. It aimed to profile the level of reading
comprehension of the 124 Education students enrolled during the first
semester of the academic year 2017-2018 in one of the catholic universities
in Davao City. A validated adapted-but-modified test questionnaire was
used to determine the level of reading comprehension of the Education
students. Moreover, it sought to determine the significant difference in the
level of reading comprehension of the students when analyzed according
to sex and year level. The mean, t-test, and standard deviation were
the statistical tools used in this study. The results of the gathered data
revealed that the overall reading comprehension of the Education students
is Satisfactory with a descriptive level of Moderate. This means that the
students can understand difficult reading texts under literal, interpretive,
evaluative, and creative levels with less supervision. Consequently,
the respondents’ year level bear a significant difference when grouped
accordingly. However, when grouped according to sex, the results show
that it did not establish any significant difference.

KEYWORDS: Education, level of reading comprehension, descriptive-

comparative, Philippines

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INTRODUCTION
In acquiring excellent English communication skills, students’ reading
competence is one of the skills that every learner has to be developed.
Reading skill becomes very important in the world of education. By reading,
students may get beneficial information that they have not learned. This
information is useful if the students understood and transcended the pages
to become thoughts and ideas. Comprehension therefore, is the capacity
for understanding those thoughts and ideas. This skill should be developed
as all lessons and activities require comprehension. It is because students’
application of these information and their understanding of what they have
read becomes the successful conclusion. However, there are still students
who are below the reading competency despite teachers’ employment of
strategies and techniques in developing reading comprehension.
Moreover, poor reading comprehension is cited as a fundamental
feature of academic underperformance in South Africa (Pretorius, 2002;
Granville, 2001; Dreyer, 1998). According to Nel, Dreyer and Kopper (2004),
many South African students enter higher education underprepared for the
reading demands that are placed upon them. The findings further revealed
that students experience problems across all aspects of the reading process
especially in reading comprehension and reading strategy used. Yet, there is
little evidence to suggest that learners at any level will acquire the reading
skills and strategies that can improve their reading comprehension if they
have not been taught (Tannenbaum, Torgesen & Wagner, 2006).
In the United States of America, it was recorded by the International
Assessment of the Adult Competencies Literary Scale (2012) that adults
achieved an average literacy proficiency score of 270 on a scale of 0 to 500
or three points below the international average score of 273. These results
indicate a need to examine current practices in reading comprehension
instruction since it is so complex and requires multiple cognitive skills and
stored memory.
In the Philippines, a study conducted by Cabasan (2011) revealed that
of the 33 students, only two college students (6%) were categorized in the
independent level, 11 college students (33%) were in the instructional and
20 college students (61%) were in the frustration level. Only two college
students then could read with thorough understanding of the materials
presented to them without assistance. Moreover, more than half of the
students are in the frustration level or known as the struggling readers.
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These are the students who need rigid remedial work and intensive
monitoring to be able to come up with the required comprehension level to
process information of textbooks and other instructional materials.
Locally, a study was conducted by Cabardo (2015) in one of the
performing high schools in Davao City to determine the reading proficiency
level of Year 1 to Year 3 students as basis for reading intervention program.
The Philippine-Informal Reading Inventory (Phil-IRI) materials were used
in assessing the level of reading proficiency of Years 1 to 3 students. The
results revealed that majority of the students belonged to the frustration
level of reading proficiency in silent reading while in instructional level
for the oral reading, majority of the males are less proficient in reading
compared to females in both silent and oral reading.
Many studies conducted and many surveys commissioned support the
fact that many students have difficulty comprehending what they read.
From these previous studies, the researchers gained an inspiration to do
a research based on this topic. This research differed from all of those
previously mentioned researches because of some aspects.
In this research, the researchers emphasized on the level of the
reading comprehension of all Education students enrolled in one of the
catholic universities in Davao City. Such endeavor was not achieved
by previous student researchers let alone, all college students from the
Education department. Also, there were no published researches yet with
exactly similar topic found in the institution for undergraduate studies.
Another aspect that the researchers dealt in conducting this study was the
possibility of instituting a reading program or supplying a helpful set of
guides on reading strategies and improvement. Since several teachers in
this university observed the lack of many college students to understand
average to difficult reading type of texts.
Consequently, this study gave students a chance to be equipped with
reading skills and improve their reading comprehension through reading
strategies. This also helped the students determine their reading performance
and evaluate their strengths and weaknesses on reading comprehension.
On the other hand, another aspect of this study enabled teachers
and administrators provide necessary strategies that enhanced reading
instruction especially in the area of comprehension based from the findings.
Further, this was used as basis and reference of the future researchers in
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doing their study about the different strategies used in developing students’
comprehension.
Therefore, the researchers of this study aimed to identify the level
of reading comprehension of the Education students enrolled in the first
semester of the Academic Year 2017-2018 in one of the catholic universities
in Davao City.
Theoretical Framework
This research was anchored with Clymer’s (1968) proposition entitled
Levels of Reading Comprehension as cited by Marquez (2008).
Marquez (2008) stated that comprehension is the major purpose
of reading; without comprehension, reading is a meaningless activity
regardless of age or ability of the reader. Marquez proved this claim by
stating that there are levels of reading comprehension as proposed by
Clymer (1968), namely: literal level, inferential or interpretive level,
evaluative level, and the creative level.
These levels of comprehension were defined individually. First, the
literal level or factual level refers to the ability of the students to decode
words, determine what each word means in a given context and recognize
that there is some relationship among words which represent what the
author has said. At this level, the learners identify the basic information
and follow simple instructions.
Second, the interpretive level belongs to higher order thinking determined
as applying and analyzing cognitive process. Students look into relationships
among statements within the material they have read. The learners are tasked
to discern the implications of the episodes by inference and to conform ideas
or meanings indirectly or implicitly stated in the selection.
Third, the evaluative level or critical level obviously relies on the text,
but to an even great extent, it requires the reader to make personal judgments
about the text. It ultimately deals with the evaluation of what is read.
Lastly, the creative level is about going beyond what the author has
written, applying the ideas from the test to a new situation and recombining
the author’s ideas with other idea to form new concepts or to equal old
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ones. Thus, this level challenges the learner to be like an inventor in using
what he got from the text to create new material as a proof of his excellent
comprehension of the text (Clymer, 1968 as cited by Marquez, 2008).
These levels provided the researchers with explanation needed
to understand the information that was gathered. The level of reading
comprehension of the Education students was profiled based from these
levels.
Meanwhile, in this study, the respondents were the Education students
enrolled during the first semester of the Academic Year 2017-2018 in one
of the catholic universities in Davao City and taking up the courses such
as Bachelor of Elementary Education major in Special Education, Bachelor
of Elementary Education major in Pre-school, Bachelor of Elementary
Education major in General Education, Bachelor of Physical Education,
and Bachelor of Secondary Education major in Mathematics, English, and
Biological Science.
Objectives of the Study
This study aimed to determine the level of reading comprehension of the
Education students enrolled during the first semester of the Academic Year
2017- 2018 in one of the catholic universities in Davao City. Moreover, it sought
to determine the significant difference in the level of reading comprehension
of the students when analyzed according to sex and year level.
METHOD
This quantitative study used the descriptive-comparative research
design. The descriptive research design examines the situation and
involves identification of attributes of a particular phenomena based on
an observational basis (Leedy & Ormrod, 2001). The comparative research
design examines how the variables are affected and involves cause and
effect relationships between the variables (Vogt, 1999). The descriptive
comparative research design spells out strategies the researcher adopts to
gather accurate, objective, and interpretable information that determine
the relationship among variables (Polit & Beck, 2007). The intention of this
design was to describe and compare the levels of reading comprehension of
the students according to their sex and year level.
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The 124 respondents of the study were the Education students enrolled However, the data likewise show that the interpretive level is the
during the Academic Year 2017-2018 from one of the catholic universities lowest level of reading comprehension of the Education students with a
in Davao City. They were chosen through the use of complete enumeration descriptive level of Moderate and is considered Satisfactory with a mean
sampling which allows the researchers to collect data in relation to every of 56.05. This means that the applying and analyzing cognitive processes
member of the population under study. of the students to conform ideas or meanings in the selection are not that
high.
They answered the validated adapted-but-modified test questionnaire
which is composed of 19-item test regarding the levels of reading Moreover, the overall reading comprehension of the sducation
comprehension. students in terms of literal level, interpretive level, evaluative level, and
creative level is satisfactory with mean of 58.46 or a descriptive level of
Furthermore, this study made use of mean, t-test and standard Moderate.
deviation as the statistical tools.
The above results illustrate that still there is a need to provide a
reading program for the sducation students to reach the maximum level
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION of reading comprehension since the overall mean only achieved the
moderate level. This claim is supported by the results from international
assessments of reading proficiency which denotes that Canadian youths
Table 1. The level of reading comprehension of the education students rank in third position of 41 countries and this made Canada’s literacy
high (Bussière, Cartwright, & Knighton, 2004). Despite the fact that the
Reading Standard Descriptive reading proficiency of Canadian youths places Canada as one of the top
Mean Interpretation
Comprehension Deviation Level ranked countries in the world, the results mask a significant problem that
Creative 63.91 25.56 High The score is considered demands attention: almost 30% of Canadian students did not meet what
Very Satisfactory are considered to be adequate levels of proficiency on international tests
Evaluative 57.12 18.67 Moderate The score is considered of reading (Organization for Economic Cooperation Development, 2010).
Satisfactory
That a substantial number of youth struggle to understand what they have
Literal 56.77 23.15 Moderate The score is considered read carries negative social and economic costs.
Satisfactory
Interpretive 56.05 21.94 Moderate The score is considered
Satisfactory Locally, the above claim is also supported by the study of Huila
Overall 58.46 14.10 Moderate The score is considered
(2003) entitled, “Socio Cultural Knowledge on Cultural Material and the
Satisfactory Reading Comprehension of the First Year College Students”, conducted at
the University of Mindanao Teachers College Matina Campus, Davao City.
Based on the results, the literal level has a mean of 2.84 or Moderate,
The Table 1 reveals that creative level is the highest level of reading the interpretive level with a mean of 3.01 or Moderate, the evaluative
comprehension of the Education students with a descriptive level of level with a mean of 4.13 or High, and the creative level with a mean of
High and is considered Very Satisfactory with an average mean of 63.91. 3.40 or Moderate. The overall result gleaned that the level of respondents’
This exhibits that students went beyond what the author of the texts proficiency in reading ranged from moderate to high. However, the score
has expected as part of the application of their ideas from the test to a of each student implies further that remedial reading still must be tailored
new situation to formulate new concepts or to equal old ones. Thus, this on improving all components in this aspect so us to reach the maximum
means that students made use of the psychological and aesthetic impact level of reading comprehension.
of the selection or the text they are reading to have a reaction worth of its
psychological and artistic elements.

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Table 2. Test for the significance of the difference in the level of the edu- Table 3 reveals that the third year students have an average mean of
cation students’ reading comprehension when analyzed according to sex 55.88 which is lower than the average mean of fourth year students with
61.40. This illustrates that fourth year students performed better in reading
Reading Mean Sig comprehension assessment than third year students. Also, since the p-value
Sex Mean t-value Remarks
Comprehension Difference (p-value) is 0.034 which is less than 0.05, there is a significant difference in the
Female 58.69 1.21 0.369 0.713 Not level of reading comprehension of the Education students when grouped
Male 57.48 significant according to year level.

The above results are supported by Bach’s neurobiological point of

Table 2 shows that the female students have an average mean of 58.69
which is higher compared to male students who have an average mean of
57.48. This means that female students are better than male students when
it comes in comprehending the written texts. However, with the p-value
of 0.713 which is greater than 0.05 as the alpha level, it reveals that there
is no significant difference in the level of Education students’ reading
comprehension when grouped according to sex.
These results are supported by Solheim and Lundetræ of the
Norwegian Reading Centre (2009). They revealed in their study that when
the reading skills of 16-24 year olds are tested, the sex differences have
suddenly become imperceptibly small or have disappeared altogether. They
compared the tests in terms of the way they are designed, the way in which
they measure reading, and the manner in which they are implemented. All
the tests apply the same definition of reading literacy.
Also, in Davao City, Canono, Magtaas, Batobato and Cadelina (2013)
showed in their study the weighted mean of males and females which
has a difference of 1.25 having the p-value of 0.092 which is greater than
0.05. This illustrates that there is no significant difference in the reading
comprehension of the Second year engineering students of the University
of the Immaculate Conception when grouped according to sex.
Table 3. Test for the significance of the difference in the level of the
Education students’ reading comprehension when analyzed according to
year level
view (2010) that the differences in reading performance found in this study
between younger and older students could be attributed to the differences
in brain maturation and hemispheric lateralization for language processing
between these two groups.
Moreover, those students who are in the higher level have better
scores than younger ones in reading fluency, reading comprehension, and
the total reading performance. It is because of the possible differences
in brain maturation between younger and older graders that could be
explained by the finding reported in a diffusion tensor magnetic resonance
imaging study, which highlights the structural integrity of the brain wiring
(Beaulieu et al., 2005).
Furthermore, based on the computed result of the study conducted
by Batang (2015) at the Isabela State University, Cabagan, Isabela, the
Fourth Year students taking up Bachelor of Secondary Education had the
highest reading comprehension level while the first year students had the
lowest. It is therefore concluded that students’ reading comprehension
level increases as their year level gets higher. The four-year stay of these
students contributed to the success and levels of their comprehension.
The above results shows that the level of reading comprehension
of the education students is considered heterogeneous since the overall
standard deviation is 14.10. This means that the answers of the students in
the reading comprehension assessment vary.

Reading Mean Sig

Year level Mean t-value Remarks
Comprehension Difference (p-value)
3rd yr 55.88 -5.51 -2.147 0.034 Significant
4 yr
th
61.40

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