Research Proposal

An Analysis of Levels of Cognitive Demand for Reading Tasks in the

Omani Private Collages EFL reading curriculum at foundation and
Academics levels.

Aims and objectives

This paper aims to identify the levels of cognitive demand of the reading
tasks reflected in the Omani private collages reading curriculum at
foundation and Academics levels. The research helped us to find out,
understand and analyse the levels of cognitive demands of students. This
research investigated the cognitive demands of reading curriculum in
Omani private collage EFL reading curriculum at foundation and
academics levels. We considered both the nature of the text used and the
comprehension tasks asked of students in determining the cognitive
demands of the curricula. Contrary to the common assumption of a
trend of simplification of the texts and comprehension tasks in
foundation and academics. The research helped us to suggest and
recommend different ideas to meet the cognitive demands of the students
and prepare the curriculum accordingly.

Learning to read and comprehend information presented in text is an

important skill that is the foundation for students’ future academic
activities. Most of the instruction on reading comprehension occurs in
elementary school, and reading instruction during the 20th century, and
thus far in the 21st century, has been dominated by published reading
curricula, known as basal reading series (Chall & Squires, 1991; Smith,
1965; Venezky, 1987). The goal of this project was to investigate the
historical changes in the cognitive demands made on students by the
EFL reading curriculum materials in Omani Private collages at
foundation and academics levels.

Research question

This paper aims to identify the levels of cognitive demand of the reading
tasks reflected in the Omani private collages reading curriculum. Three
main questions arise here. Which are “what lower levels of cognitive
demand for reading tasks are reflected in the Omani private collages
reading curriculum?” Other question is “what higher levels of cognitive
demand for reading tasks are reflected in the Omani private collages
reading curriculum?” and the last question is “ What levels of cognitive
demand for reading tasks reflected in the Omani private collages reading
curriculum are the most emphasised?” .

The learning of the English language is essential with the progress of

globalization in the society and economy, and has become a very
important issue in terms of the future of development (Morita, 2014).
Hence, countries everywhere have noticed that it is essential to include
English language learning in their education systems, beginning from the
early stages at schools (Graddol, 1998). Furthermore, English language
teaching (ELT) has been considered as an important global activity and a
large business and industry for the past five decades or so. In addition, it
stands as a very important aspect for the politics and economics of
English today (Sidek, 2010). According to Lazaro and Medalla (2004),
English has occupied a vital role as a communal international language
regarding connecting people from all corners of the world who speak
different languages. Although it comes as a second language according to
the number of speakers, English is the most widespread language used
worldwide. It is the official language in fifty-two countries and in many
small settlements and regions. Furthermore, one-fourth to one-third of
the world’s population is able to speak or understand English at different
levels (Lazaro &Medalla, 2004). As a result, many non-English speaking
countries promote English proficiency in an effort toward modernization
and internationalization (Sidek, 2010).

Language learning in the socio/cognitive and socio/cultural theory relies

on both the communicative tool and the psychological tool to develop the
learner's cognitive processes. The communicative interactive theories of
information processing stress through interaction between low level and
high level of cognitive process (Nambiar, 2007).

Such combination of different levels of cognitive demands in processing

the reading texts help student in building their reading competence as
well as their ability to process reading texts with different level of
cognitive demands. Thus, both of the high and the low levels of cognitive
skills are important for L2 readers to overcome the language difficulties
specially when reading difficult academic texts (Alderson, 2000). So
training the students only on lower cognitive demands tasks do not help
them in processing the higher level of cognitive demands tasks. Training
the students on the two levels of cognitive demands of reading tasks is
greatly significant as reading at academic level is more complex and
requires interaction among the reader knowledge, the cognitive skills, the
strategy use, and purpose of reading.

The student's ability to manage reading tasks that require high cognitive
demand is another essential element for effective reading comprehension
as the academic reading tasks complexity range from easy to difficult.
For the learners, in order to achieve higher level of success in their
academic reading they need to be able to accomplish reading tasks with
different levels of cognitive demands starting from coding written
information (low level) to analyzing once personal experience (high level)
(Lesnick et al., 2010).
Moreover, the academic reading materials are relatively difficult and
commonly require high level of cognitive demands reading tasks. Efficient
reading requires the readers to manage high cognitive demands reading
tasks such as making predictions and hypothesis about text content and
examine their predictions (Ozek, 2006).

Literature review

The data for the study have been collected through analyzing the reading
task statements extracted from the Engage with English (EWE)
Curriculum Specifications Document, the Engage with English textbook.
Then the researcher adopted the method analysis Marzano et al.’s 'Core
Thinking Skills' classification and Marzano’s 'Cognitive System'
classification. The most important result is that the overall of outcomes
of the two levels of cognitive demands as well as the outcome of each
individual category in each level from all documents. The research
focused at different collages students in Oman. The data was collected
from five different colleges at foundation and academics levels.

Summary of academic literature

As this study is involved document analysis, it was necessary that

validity procedures be carried out. According to Weber (1990:12), “to
make valid inferences from the text, it is important that the classification
procedure be reliable in the sense of being consistent: Different people
should code the same text in the same way.”
In this study, reading tasks refer to any statements in the Omani English
Language Curriculum Specifications document and the Engage with
English EFL textbook that can be thought as being associated to EFL
reading skills. Moreover, validity procedures for coding the tasks
associated with reading skills were carried on through asking an EFL
curriculum experts form Ministry of Education (MOE) in the Sultanate of
Oman to show agreement or disagreement about whether the elicited
statements chosen by the researcher will be reading tasks, as the
arbitrators will be provided with copies of the thesis project plan to show
them the variables of the study and its theoretical framework .

The same validity procedure carried on the elicited reading tasks to

determine whether those tasks are observed implicitly or explicitly as a
means to achieve the listed learning outcomes in the Omani EFL Private
Collages Curriculum. Any disagreement about items tested for reliability
was decided by discussion.

On other hand, Creswell (2003) gave a general definition of reliability in

terms of the consistency and stability of responses. It can also be defined
as a measure of the reliability and consistency of the research, as
demonstrated by documentation of all procedures used in the study in a
way that demonstrates the study is aiming for optimal reliability.
Reliability is also a term for a measurement instrument’s dependability,
the degree to which repeated investigations yield comparable results.
Reliability is further concerned with the particular research instrument’s
consistency.
According to Golafshani (2003), reliability is a measure of how accurately
and consistently an instrument can quantify a phenomenon through
time and among different populations. It is literally the extent to which
the data and its source can be relied on. Data is reliable when it is
dependable, unfailing, trustworthy, authentic, sure, reputable and
genuine, and it can be measured in terms of consistency and the
reputability of the source.
To check the reliability of the research instrument, the researcher use
Holsti equation as bellow, and what observed that in general all reliability
numbers was very good and reflect good range of consistency.

Methodology

This paper aimed to identify the levels of cognitive demand of the reading
tasks reflected in the Omani private collages EFL reading curriculum In
addition, the study sought to answer the following research questions:

RQ1) what lower levels of cognitive demand for reading tasks are
reflected in the Omani EFL Private collages reading curriculum?
RQ2) what higher levels of cognitive demand for reading tasks are
reflected in the Omani EFL Private collages reading curriculum?
RQ3) what levels of cognitive demand for reading tasks reflected in the
Omani EFL Private collages reading curriculum are the
most emphasised?

Theoretical Framework

Using case studies has become very common in social research,

particularly with small-scale research projects. The current research
utilized a case study method. Case study research is “simply conducting
research on a single individual or situation. This approach has the
potential to deal with simple through complex situations” (Baxter & Jack,
2008: 556). Moreover, a case study provides high opportunity to get huge
vision into a case for a novice research, as it allows the researcher to
collect data from diverse sources and congregate them to clarify the case
(Baxter & Jack, 2008). Typically, “when the case has special entities to
discover, the single case design is suitable to be utilized, since it forms a
starting point for highlighting contextual matters that could be
important” (Yu &Ramanathan, 2012: 223).
The focus on a single case permits richer and deeper perspective than a
case-based study, which generally concentrates on comparisons between
cases, instead of the exhaustive understanding of a special framework
(Baxter & Jack, 2008). The aim of a case study is to understand complex
social phenomena, and a real life case, such as managerial and
organizational processes. As stated by Denscombe (2010), the main
feature of the case study approach is that it focuses on just one instance
of the thing that is to be investigated. This is exactly what intended in
the current study, given the time and resources of the researcher.
Choosing a case study strategy allowed for the use of a variety of
methods, each of which provided important data. The feature of a case
study is that it allows for deeper penetration into the core of the matter,
although, it is often hard to generalize based on one single case and to
provide general conclusions.

Instruments

The present study intended to identify the levels of cognitive demand of

the reading tasks reflected in the Omani private collages EFL reading
curriculum Thus, the main instrument in this study is content Analysis.
Using this instrument, the researcher determined what is the levels of
cognitive demand of the reading tasks reflected in the Omani EFL Private
collages reading curriculum according to the 'Core Thinking Skills'
classification by (Marzano et al.’s), and Marzano’s 'Cognitive System'
classification, as a method for Language Teaching to the Private collages
reading Curriculum.
Data Collection

For analyzing Analysis of Levels of Cognitive Demand for Reading Tasks

in the Omani EFL Private collages reading curriculumthe researcher
analyzed the levels of difficulty of the Private collagesEFL reading
curriculum in order to determine the types of reading tasks that Grade-
Twelfth students are prepared for. In deciding the cognitive levels of the
reading tasks, Marzano et al.’s 'Core Thinking Skills' classification (1988)
and Marzano’s 'Cognitive System' classification (2000) were integrated as
follows:
Lower Level:Focusing: taking particular information and ignoring others,
Recall/Remembering recalling information from long-term memory, and
Information gathering: getting information by one or more senses or
searching information by inquiry.
Higher Level: Representation: coordinating information such as apply on
graphic organizers (e.g., maps, charts), organizing: Comparing, sorting,
ordering, and representing. Moreover, Applying: utilizing applicable prior
knowledge within a new position, Analyzing: describing details,
relationships and forms, principal thoughts as well as mistakes,
Synthesizing: identification of the most crucial components and deletion
of insignificant information, Generating: deducing, anticipating, and
working out information, Integrating: resuming and reconstituting, and
Evaluating: putting criteria and verifying.

These classifications utilized because they identify the cognitive skills or

thinking skills, which students require to have for interpretation
information successfully at different levels of cognitive demand. If the
cognitive requirements of the reading tasks in the secondary EFL reading
curriculum are mainly at the knowledge recovery and understanding
level of the selected classification like remembering and focus, Private
collagesstudents may not be found any difficulty in reading tasks in EFL
at the university level.
The method that was used to answer the research questions is the
(Content Analysis), and the instrument was the ('Core Thinking Skills'
and Marzano’s 'Cognitive System'), the analysis and interpretation were
the (Research question whether the students are partially prepared, fully
prepared or not being prepared for reading for university reading in EFL).

Resources

 Al-Ajmi, S. E. 2003. Optimum Selection of Underbalanced

Techniques, Master Thesis, Texas A&M University, 20-22
December, p.14.
 Alderson, J. C. 1990. Testing reading comprehension skills (Part
One). Reading in a Foreign Language, 6(2), p.438.
 Al-Issa, A. S. 2011. Schema theory and L2 reading comprehension:
Implications for teaching. Journal of College Teaching and Learning
(TLC), 3(7), p.48.
 Al-Issa, A. S., and Al-Bulushi, A. H. 2012. English language
teaching reform in Sultanate of Oman: The case of theory and
practice disparity. Educational Research for Policy and Practice,
11(2), p.176.
 Al-Issa, A., and Al-Bulushi, A. 2010. Training English language
student teachers to become reflective teachers. Australian Journal
of Teacher Education, 35(4), p4.
 Graddol, D. 1998. The future of English. London: The British
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