A Comparative Meta-analysis on the Effect of Higher vs. Lower Level Skills in EFL Reading

Abstract

A successful EFL reading entails many factors. Among these, one can refer to both lower level linguistic factors such as 'overall linguistic proficiency of the learners' as well as higher level factors such as 'background knowledge' (schemata) that the learners bring to the learning situation. However, it seems that there's not a clear-cut perspective among EFL researchers as to which factors are more important on the overall process of reading comprehension in EFL settings. To clarify the issue, the authors have tried to comparatively examine the issue though a comprehensive meta-analysis for the bilateral effect of background knowledge vs. linguistic proficiency among the empirical studies done on the subject so far. Some useful pedagogical implications for an EFL reading class are discussed at the end.