English recreational readinghabits of Arab Jordanian EFL

tertiary studentsMohammad N. Khreisat and Sarjit Kaur

English Language Studies, University Sains Malaysia, Penang, Malaysia

Abstract

Purpose – This study aims to investigate English recreational reading habits of Arab Jordanian EFLuniversity students when classes are in session and during vacation, and the types of recreationalreading they engage in. In addition, the study explores other relationships such as the relationshipbetween reading habits and students’ cumulative grade point average (CGPA); and the effect ofparents’ educational level and their time spent on reading.

Design/methodology/approach – The respondents, comprising 225 third- and fourth-year Englishmajors, completed an English recreational reading habits questionnaire. The study utilised anon-probability sampling method, namely, purposive sampling. Data were analysed using IBM SPSSsoftware v. 20.

Findings – The findings indicated that students read more when they were on vacation compared totheir readings while classes are in session. The students’ average time spent on reading when classesare in session and during vacation is 2.15 hours and 2.82 hours per week, respectively. Slightly morethan half (57 percent) the students always read emails/chat rooms/Facebook, which are their mostpreferred type of recreational reading. Non-fiction books were the least favourite among students with47 percent of students indicating that they never or rarely read this type of genre. Among all thereading interests, only novels had a significant correlation with the students’ CGPA. The findingsshowed that the respondents with higher levels of fathers’ education were significantly reading more.

Originality/value – The reading habits of EFL students have received little attention and there islimited research that surveyed Arab EFL students’ recreational reading habits at the tertiary level.The purpose of this study is to address this gap in the literature and set out to be a point of referenceand comparison for future investigations about English recreational reading habits of Arab EFLtertiary students.

Keywords Literacy, Arab EFL tertiary students, Jordanian students, Reading interests,Recreational reading habits, Voluntary reading

Paper type Research paper

1. IntroductionBeyond looking at reading as a mere decoding process, that is, learning to read, theultimate purpose of being literate is the application of the ability to read, which is readingto learn (OECD, 2010b). Many organisations and countries invest a great amount ofeffort in eliminating illiteracy. Many countries, however, are now concerned with anincreasingly dire phenomenon called aliteracy rather than illiteracy (Edwards, 2008), thatis choosing not to read. Thus, the issue of aliteracy has received considerable low criticalattention when compared to illiteracy. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation andDevelopment (OECD, 2010b) attests that “the ultimate goal of education is to cultivatenot only proficiency, but also engagement in reading and continuing to read”.Purcell-Gates et al. (2002) assert that educational organisations will not achieve literacygoals if they produce individuals who can read but choose not to do so.

The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at

www.emeraldinsight.com/1753-7983.htm

Received 26 August 2013Revised 20 December 2013

11 February 2014Accepted 19 March 2014

Education, Business and Society:Contemporary Middle Eastern Issues

Vol. 7 No. 1, 2014pp. 17-32

q Emerald Group Publishing Limited1753-7983

DOI 10.1108/EBS-08-2013-0030

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Some scholars (van Schooten and de Glopper, 2002; Miesen, 2003) have expressedtheir concerns that new generations are reading markedly less than those that camebefore, since their decision to read is competing with other leisure activities(e.g. watching TV or doing sports). These findings have heightened the need for aserious investigation into the status quo of the recreational reading habits of EFLstudents, specifically Arab EFL students at tertiary level. Worth noting is the fact thatreading habits of EFL students have received little attention and there is a scantresearch that surveys Arab EFL students’ recreational reading habits at the tertiarylevel (Al-Shorman and Bataineh, 2004; Al-Nafisah and Al-Shorman, 2011).

Although the percentage of literacy in the Arab world in some countries is over90 percent, for example, Jordan and Kuwait (UNESCO, 2008), a recent UN report statesthat an average Arab person reads only four pages a year (The Russian News andInformation Agency, 2008). This is compared to eleven and eight books a year for theAmericans and the British, respectively.

It is assumed that educational institutions will equip students with not only Englishcompetency to read, but a lifelong desire to keep reading and learning. It has beenfound that it is not the goal of curricula nor the intent of many EFL students to be avidreaders; their only concern is to build up functional language skills, vocabulary andgrammar (Grabe, 2008). Thus, in the Arab world (specifically in Jordan), most of theempirical studies that have been identified (Al-Khresheh, 2010; AL-Khotaba, 2009;Al-Ali, 2006; Mukallaluh, 2003) focus predominantly on EFL students’ writing deficits,reading process errors and functional problems such as syntactic errors and cohesionproblems.

Mourtaga (2006) demonstrates that one of the reasons behind Arab EFL students’weakness in reading is due to a lack of reading practise. Al-Shorman and Bataineh(2004) have indicated that most Jordanian EFL students consider improving otherlanguage skills as more important than improving reading. A large proportion of theliterature has focused on the reading habits of school students compared to universitystudents (Gallik, 1999; Mokhtari et al., 2009).

Most of the time allocated for reading in classrooms concentrates on developingreading skills and neglects the development of reading for pleasure, putting highemphasis on the cognitive aspects and marginalizing other aspects. Reading is pivotalto knowledge acquisition and being a proficient reader is the key to success in allaspects of life (OECD, 2010b; Howard, 2011). Therefore, reading is not only importantfor developing language aptitude, but is also important in gaining a betterunderstanding of the world. Recreational reading, as a type of reading, can be extendedto encompass a variety of topics in both printed and digital text format. This type ofreading is contingent on the reader’s preference of what, when and where to read, anddoes not bear any assessment other than the reader to him/herself (Richardson andEccles, 2007).

The benefits of recreational reading are beyond dispute. These benefits can becategorised into linguistic and non-linguistic aspects. At the linguistic level,recreational reading is important as it enhances one’s vocabulary, grammar andwriting. Although reading instruction seemingly tackles those issues, however,according to Krashen this constitutes one approach to language learning. Krashen(1981), in his acquisition-learning hypothesis, postulates that there are two ways ofdeveloping linguistic aptitude: learning and acquisition. In the first, people learn the

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language through drills and exercises, which represent the learning processof language rather than the acquisition. Krashen (1989) demonstrates that there aresome limits for the acquisition of language obtained through conscious and deliberatelearning, that is through repeated exercises. On the acquisition level, according toKrashen’s (1985) theory of second language acquisition, a person acquires the languageon a subconscious level without even realizing it. Krashen (2004) adds that this kind ofacquisition is contingent on a comprehensible input and recreational reading, beingcomprehensible, will yield more acquisition. Iftanti (2012) confirms this notion andstates that “where there is little reading there will be little language learning”.

Many studies (Lewis and Samuels, 2002; Samuels and Wu, 2004; Topping et al.,2007, 2008) show that an increase in academic achievement is the effect of recreationalreading as opposed to reading done at schools or academic reading; supportingKrashen’s claim. Nagy (1988) says that producing more vocabulary is not the productof more instruction, but more reading. Babbitt-Bray et al. (2004) argue that whencollege students read more for pleasure, they are likely to increase their vocabulary anddevelop a sense of cultural literacy.

The relationship of influence between recreational reading habits and academicachievement in general and reading achievement in particular is empirically provedthrough a plethora of literature, to name a few (Hughes-Hassell and Rodge, 2007;Pfost et al., 2010; Anderson et al., 1988; Kim, 2006; Lewis and Samuels, 2002;Topping et al., 2007, 2008; Hawkins, 2012). Furthermore, other researchers (Constantino,1995; Gradman and Hanania, 1991; Constantino et al., 1997; Mason, 2006, 2007) haveindicated that the volume of free reading is a strong predictor of TOEFL performance.Thus, many researchers support the argument of increased reading and exposure toprint can contribute towards enhancement of learners’ abilities (Krashen, 1988;Stanovich, 1986; Cunningham and Stanovich, 2001). Pigada and Schmitt (2006), forexample, conducted a study to see the effect of extensive reading on the acquisition ofvocabulary, grammar and spelling. They found that improvement in spelling was thestrongest. There were improvements in vocabulary and syntactic knowledge but thesewere not as strong as spelling. The study indicated that vocabulary attainment ispossible from extensive reading.

The benefits of recreational reading have been proven to extend far beyond thelanguage development domain to accommodate personal and career developmentdomains. Recreational reading enables the realization of people’s ambitions includingeducational and career aspirations and allows for a better reflection on one’s self and life(OECD, 2010b). Richardson and Eccles (2007) suggest that the advantages of voluntaryreading transcend beyond educational attainment to impact the way adolescentsunderstand themselves and the world. Howard (2011) asserts that pleasure reading playsa vital role in the development of academic performance, social engagement and personalvalues and identity. Recreational reading can also impact the attitudes of studentstowards reading. If a student reads his own choice of material, this will help develop apositive attitude towards reading and will motivate him/her to read academic materials(Booth, 2007). Furthermore, motivation is an important element in reading. According toStanovich (1986), unmotivated people are unlikely to read. Reading has been attested tosurpass its effect on individuals to nations’ economies. The OECD (2010a) have cited astudy (Coulombe et al., 2004) which found that a nation’s reading literacy levels are agood predictor of economic prosperity and growth.

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Since there is scarcity in previous studies that tackled the reading habits of ArabEFL University students, the findings of this paper will be compared to other researchthat addressed EFL tertiary students. Mokhtari et al. (2009) and Gallik (1999) confirmthe limited research on reading habits of college students, compared with those onyounger students. In the identified studies, a common theme emerged where most ofthem have investigated time spent on reading, type of materials students read andwhether there is a significant difference between males and females. In addition, somestudies have elicited the relationship of influence between reading and other academicand linguistic benefits. Table I presents a summary of related research on theaforementioned studies and their contributions.

2. Purpose of the studyDespite the attention levelled at the functionality of the reading skills in the Arab EFLresearch, relatively little research has empirically examined how much time Arab EFLuniversity students spend on recreational reading in the English language. Thus, thepurpose of this study is address this gap in the literature and set out to be a point ofreference and comparison for future investigations about Arab EFL students’ Englishreading habits at the tertiary level. In support of this claim, Al-Nafisah andAl-Shorman (2011) attest that there is lack of research in this domain in the MiddleEast. Only a few studies have investigated Arab EFL students’ English reading habits:in Jordan (Al-Shorman and Bataineh, 2004) and in Saudi Arabia (Al-Nafisah andAl-Shorman, 2011). In both studies, the authors elicited the reading interests of Arab

Reading interests

Study Sample Most popularLeastpopular Time spent per week

Blackwood et al. (1991) 333 MagazinesNewspapers

Comicbooks

2.5 hours

Gallik (1999) 139 MagazinesLetters/email/chatrooms

Comicbooks

2 hours

Al-Shorman andBataineh (2004)

540 Short stories womenmagazines novels

Economicbooks

N/A

Sheorey and Mokhtari(1994)

85 N/A N/A 4.75 hours

Chen (2007) 62,198 NewspapersMagazines

Prose/poetry

First year ss: 10.71 hoursThird year ss: 12.74 hours

Jolliffe and Harl (2008) 21 Emails, instant messages,and Facebook

N/A Electronic: 6.3 hoursNon-electronic: 2.8 hours

Mokhtari et al. (2009) 539 N/A N/A 7.98 hoursAl-Nafisah andAl-Shorman (2011)

460 Stories, adventure books,religious books, andmagazines

Economicbooks

N/A

Hawkins (2012) 119 Letters/email/Facebook Comicbooks,poetry

During school: 4.95During vacation: 9.42

Note: ss – students

Table I.Related studies onrecreational readinghabits

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EFL university students and analysed factors hindering such readings; nevertheless,they did not investigate the amount of time spent on reading.

The study sought to answer the following research questions:

RQ1. How much time do Arab EFL students spend on recreational reading?

RQ2. Are there any differences between third and fourth year students on timespent on recreational reading and their frequency of reading interests?

RQ3. What are the reading interests of Arab EFL students?

RQ4. Is there a relationship between parents’ educational level and students’recreational reading habits?

RQ5. Is there a relationship between academic achievement (cumulative gradepoint average, CGPA) and recreational reading habits?

3. MethodData were gathered from 225 students from a public university in Amman, Jordan(i.e. the University of Jordan) using a questionnaire adapted from literature (Gallik,1999). The first section of the questionnaire collected demographic information; thesecond section measured time spent on reading while classes were in session and duringvacation and the last section elicited types of recreational reading done by the students.The population of this study is English major students enrolled in the University ofJordan (N ¼ 720). According to Sekaran (2003), the ratio of choosing a sample from thesize of the population, where, if a population consists of (N ¼ 750) respondents, a sampleof (S ¼ 254) respondents is needed. Therefore, the researchers have distributed265 questionnaires personally and via instructors. A total number of 245 questionnaireswere retained in which only 225 questionnaires were valid for analysis.

The study utilized a non-probability sampling method, namely, purposive sampling.Only third and fourth year English major students were selected as the sample for thisstudy. The rational for selecting this sample is that these students had alreadycompleted two to three years of English courses; hence, they are expected to have moreexposure to reading English material and would have developed their reading habitsmore than first and second year students. Moreover, Al-Khasawneh (2010) and Rabab’ah(2005) assert that many Arab universities admit high school graduates into Englishstudies programmes despite their low levels of proficiency in that language. Milroy andGordon (2003) state that the strength of the conclusions derived from the sample resultsdepend on how much the selected sample represents the larger population. Thus, theUniversity of Jordan was selected due to its strategic position at the centre of the capital,and it encompasses students from all regions of the Kingdom, which provides gooddiversity and representation of the larger population.

3.1 Sample profileThe sample of the study consists of 225 undergraduate students majoring in Englishlanguage and literature at the University of Jordan. The demographic information ofthe respondents is presented in Table II. Females outnumbered males, whichessentially reflects the gender ratio of English majors in Jordanian universities. Theaverage age of the students is 21.03 years (SD ¼ 1.03).

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4. ResultsThe sections below present the findings of the study. The first section presentsstudents’ time spent on recreational reading when classes are in session and duringvacation. The second illustrates the difference between third and fourth year students.The third shows the effect of parents’ level of education on the students’ time spent onreading. The fourth shows the relationship between academic achievement andrecreational reading habits. The final section presents students’ recreational readinginterests.

4.1 Time spent on readingResults on the time spent on recreational reading when classes are in session per weekare presented in Table III. A majority of the students (67.1 percent) reported readingtwo hours or less per week while classes are in session. This is expected due to classeswork and assignments students have to do. A small percentage of students (24 percent)reported a reading time of 3-5 hours while only 9 percent of the students reportedreading 6 hours or more.

The average time spent on recreational reading when classes are in session is2.15 hours (SD ¼ 0.99). On the other hand, the average time spent onrecreational reading during vacation, is 2.82 hours (SD ¼ 1.18). A paired-samplest-test was conducted to compare the number of hours spent on recreationalreading when classes are in sessions and during vacation. There was a significantdifference in the time spent on recreational reading when classes are in session(M ¼ 2.15, SD ¼ 0.99) and during vacation (M ¼ 2.82, SD ¼ 1.18); t(224) ¼ 28.978,p ¼ 0.000.

The results in Table IV show that less than half the students (41.8 percent) spendtwo hours or less each week on recreational reading during vacation. There is a slightincrease in the category of 3-5 hours, with an increase of 4 percent in time spent on

Frequency %

Year levelThird year 85 37.8Fourth year 140 62.2GenderFemale 210 93.3Male 15 6.7

Table II.Demographic profileof respondents

Hours per week Frequency %

Less than 1 hour 66 29.31-2 hours 85 37.83-5 hours 54 24.06-10 hours 15 6.7Over 10 hours 5 2.2

Table III.Time spent onrecreational readingwhen classes in session

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recreational reading during vacation. Moreover, only less than a third of the totalnumber of students (28.9 percent) reported reading more than six hours per weekduring vacation.

4.2 Differences between groupsSince this study has no equal ratio between females and males (93 and 7 percent,respectively), the study investigated if there was any difference between third andfourth year students in the amount of time spent on recreational reading during classesand vacation. Due to the unequal proportion in the size and variance between fourthand third year students (N ¼ 140 and N ¼ 85, respectively), a random sample of caseshas been employed using IBM SPSS software to select 85 random samples fromfourth year students. Statistical analysis (i.e. independent sample t-test) was then usedto compare the difference in time spent on recreational reading when classes are insession and during vacation between third and fourth year students. The resultsindicate a non-significant difference between the two groups in their time spent onrecreational reading whether classes are in session or during vacation.

The study also examined the difference in the frequency of reading of differenttypes of reading interest between third and fourth years students. The results indicatedthat only novels had a significant difference in the frequency of reading betweenthird year students (M ¼ 2.00, SD ¼ 0.655) and fourth year students (M ¼ 2.20,SD ¼ 0.691); (t(184) ¼ 22.175; p ¼ 0.031).

4.3 Students’ reading interestsThe students were asked to indicate their frequency of reading for the different types ofrecreational reading. As shown in Table V, emails/chats/Facebook is the mostpreferred type of recreational reading for Arab EFL tertiary students. More than halfthe students (57.3 percent) indicated that they always read emails, chat rooms andFacebook. Novels were the second preferred type of recreational reading (30.2 percent),indicating that students enjoy reading such leisure reading material. Newspapers and

Never/rarely Sometimes AlwaysType N % N % N %

Newspapers 55 24.4 111 49.3 59 26.3Magazines 53 23.6 122 54.2 50 22.2Emails/chat rooms/Facebook 30 13.3 66 29.3 129 57.3Novels 40 17.8 117 52 68 30.2Nonfiction books 105 46.7 81 36 39 17.3

Table V.Reading interests

Hours per week Frequency %

Less than 1 hour 33 14.71-2 hours 61 27.13-5 hours 66 29.36-10 hours 43 19.1Over 10 hours 22 9.8

Table IV.Time spent on

recreational readingduring vacation

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magazines were less preferred, with 26 and 22 percent of the students reportingreading these types of recreational readings, respectively. Non-fiction books were theleast favourite among students with 47 percent of students indicating that they neveror rarely read this type of recreational reading.

4.4 The effects of parents’ education on students’ recreational reading habitsThe study also examined the influence of other possible factors on students’recreational reading habits such as parents’ education. The students were asked toreport their parents’ education level with options ranging from “High school or less” to“Master and above”. The results indicate a weak but significant relationship betweeneducational degree of the father and the students’ reading habits when classes are insession and during vacation (Table VI). This relationship is stronger when students areon vacation.

A paired-samples t-test was utilized to compare the level of education of thefathers and the mothers. The analysis showed a significant difference between thestudents’ fathers (M ¼ 2.52, SD ¼ 0.99) and mothers (M ¼ 2.04, SD ¼ 0.78) inthe level of education; t(218) ¼ 2.471, p ¼ 0.014. The significant correlation of thefathers’ education with students’ reading habits is resultant of higher degrees ofeducation.

4.5 Relationship between academic achievement (CGPA) and recreational reading habitsCorrelation analyses were utilized to investigate the relationship between CGPA and(1) time spent on recreational reading and (2) reading interests. First, the studyexamined the relationship between CGPA and time spent on reading when (a) classesare in session and (b) during vacation. On the one hand, the results indicate anon-significant relationship between CGPA and time spent on recreational readingwhen classes are in session. On the other hand, there is a positive significantrelationship between CGPA and time spend on recreational reading during vacation(Table VII). However, this relationship is weak.

The second analysis was test between CGPA and different reading interests.A Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient was used to assess the relationshipbetween different types of recreational reading interests and CGPA. The analysisindicated that only novels had a small but significant positive correlation with CGPA;

During classes During vacation

CGPA 0.082 0.253 * *

Note: Significant at: * *p , 0.01 (two-tailed)

Table VII.Correlation betweenCGPA and time spent onrecreational reading

Time in school Time during vacation

Fathers’ education level 0.153 * 0.222 * *

Note: Significant at: *p , 0.05 and * *p , 0.01 (two-tailed)

Table VI.Correlation betweenfathers’ education andstudents’ reading habits

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r ¼ 0.159, n ¼ 225, p ¼ 0.017. The increase in frequency of reading novels correlatedwith the increase of CGPA of students. Other reading interests did not yield anysignificant correlation with CGPA.

5. Discussion and conclusionsIn this study, the primary goal was to investigate the amount of time and interests ofthe students’ reported recreational reading habits. The findings of this study reportedthe following:

. the amount of time Arab EFL tertiary students (i.e. Jordanian English majors)spend on recreational reading when classes are in session and during vacation;

. their recreational reading interests; and

. the relationship between recreational reading habits and academic achievement.

In addition, the study also investigated if other factors, (i.e. parents’ educational level)have an effect on the students’ reading habits. Furthermore, due to limited research onthe recreational English reading habits of Arab EFL students, the results of this studyis compared to other studies of recreational English reading habits of students fromother contexts.

There were no studies that investigated time spent on the recreational Englishreading of Arab EFL tertiary students; thus, studies from other contexts are used forreference and comparison. The findings of this study indicate that students spend anaverage time of 2.4 hours on recreational reading each week when classes are in sessionand during vacation. This is surprisingly similar to other previous research studiesconducted with native speakers of English (Gallik, 1999; Blackwood et al., 1991). On theother hand, there were other studies that were inconsistent with the findings from thisstudy. Chen (2007) found that the mean for the English recreational reading habits ofTaiwanese first year students was 10.71 hours per week and third year students spentmore time; an average of 12.74 hours per week. Jolliffe and Harl (2008) reported thatstudents spend an average of 54 minutes a day (i.e. 6.3 hours a week) on electronicrecreational reading (i.e. Facebook profiles, emails, internet sites, etc.) and 24 minutes aday (i.e. 2.8 hours per week) on non-electronic recreational reading (namely, magazines,books, newspapers, etc.). In contrast, Mokhtari et al. (2009) reported that the students intheir study spent an average of 7.98 hours per week.

The discrepancies could be due to using different time measures, that is, usingtime-diaries surveys (Hawkins, 2012) vs time blocks surveys and even using differenttime blocks Gallik (1999) vs Mokhtari et al. (2009). In addition, other studies have usedhours per day (Chen, 2007) vs hours per week (Blackwood et al., 1991); meanwhile,others have used minutes per day (Jolliffe and Harl, 2008).

In the current study, the difference between time spent on reading when classes arein session and during vacation is an indication that students spend more time onrecreational reading when they do not have classes work. This change includes anincrease of 20 percent in the over six hours time-frame category. This isconsistent with previous research (Gallik, 1999) and provides evidence that studentsread more if they had free time; however this question was not asked in thequestionnaire. The difference between amounts of reading time in the time frame of3-6 hours was slightly changed with a 4 percent increase in favour of reading doneduring vacation.

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The results indicated a small correlation between the fathers’ education andthe amount of time their children spend on recreational reading, whether classes are insession or during vacation. The mothers’ educational level, on the other hand, does notseem to have an effect on the recreational reading habits of students. Accordingto the mean analysis, fathers’ educational level (M ¼ 2.52, SD ¼ 0.99) of the sample ismuch higher than that of the mothers (M ¼ 2.0444, SD ¼ 0.78). Higher educationallevel could have been presented as a form of an encouragement for students.Kamhieh et al. (2011) found a similar result where students’ parent encouragement –especially of their fathers’ – has helped them become avid readers. Nevertheless, in astudy conducted by Blackwood et al. (1991), parents’ education and parents’encouragement did not yield any significant effect on students’recreational reading habits. Thus, more scrutiny should be invested with personalinterviews on parents’ encouragement and support concerning recreational readingengagement.

The students’ top preference for recreational reading in this study is email/chatrooms/Facebook, followed by novels and newspapers. On the global level, there weresimilar findings in part with those of Gallik’s (1999) study in which letters/email/chatrooms were the second most preferred type of recreational reading. Other studies(Blackwood et al., 1991), magazines were the first choice and newspapers came second. It isapparent that with the increase in time, the popularity of technology-related sources isincreasing. According to Gambrell (2005), computers and the internet have changed theculture of reading and the quest for information has become at the fingertips of students.For instance, a recent study (Hawkins, 2012) has found that letters/email/Facebook are themost preferred reading type among college students. Thus, in Gallik’s (1999) andBlackwood et al.’s (1991) studies, technology and the internet did not have the currentimpact on people’s lives, with the abundance of information and ease of access,particularly of the social media. In this regard, Kabilan et al. (2010) investigated theperceptions of university students about Facebook as a supplementary environment toenhance learning English. The study found that students perceived Facebook as usefulenvironment to facilitate learning English.

The significant correlation between novels and CGPA of students seems logicalsince novels are the only reading interest related to their major, i.e. English languageand literature. However, it is interesting that only related quality reading has the onlyeffect on CGPA of students, although reading texts on email/chat/Facebook has beenreported by student to be the most frequent.

On the local Arab EFL context, the current study shares results with researchconducted by Al-Shorman and Bataineh (2004) who explored the reading interests ofJordanian university EFL students. A wide range of reading interests are common suchas magazines, novels and newspapers. However, categorization of reading materials ismore detailed in Al-Shorman and Bataineh’s (2004) study compared to this study,where this study has only five major categories compared to the 35 detailed categories(e.g. science magazines, sports magazines, etc.). This has made the comparisonequivocal.

6. Limitations of the studyThis study utilized a self-reported questionnaire with fixed answer options abouttime spent on recreational reading using blocks of time which is relatively convenient

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but limits the amount of data. However, using methods like time diaries or readingjournals would provide more complete and accurate data. Furthermore, although thestudy sample involved Arab English majors at the University of Jordan, the findingsmight not be applicable for other Arab EFL college students. This study has noconclusions or results on the differences between genders, as the ratio of females andmales in the population limits any equal representation.

7. Implications of findingsSince there is a plethora of literature that attest to the benefits of recreational reading,educators and policy makers should invest great amount of efforts to encourage suchactivity in schools and universities. For example, as this study found that the preferredtype of reading is emails/chatrooms/Facebook; educators may try to promoterecreational reading via pages and groups on Facebook. The study also highlighted therole of parents educational level, particularly of the fathers’, in promoting reading andplaying an integral part influencing their children. Therefore, efforts should also bedirected towards educating parents about their roles as a major influence on theirchildren’s lives and reading habits.

The study revealed that time spent on recreational reading is relatively low inboth situations; vacation and when classes are in session. There should be more effortto incorporate more materials for recreational reading at the university and createvoluntary programmes or book clubs during vacations. It is recommended that policymakers and educators use email/chatrooms/Facebook to promote recreationalreading since they are the preferred medium for reading among Arab EFL tertiarystudents.

Moreover, the study suggests further recommendations for future research relatedto Arab EFL reading habits. First, future research comparing the reading habits ofstudents in both English and Arabic can provide significant contribution to theliterature. This study has only studied the influence of parents’ educational level on thestudents’ time spent on English recreational reading. Therefore, further investigationof parents’ influence and encouragement is of great importance; such as being read toat younger ages, family visits to the library and bookshops, or family book discussionswhich may yield more information on parents’ influence. Future research should alsotry to compare the recreational reading of Arab EFL college students to otherrecreational activities they engage in and investigate whether these activities had animpact or effect on their recreational reading. In addition, an investigation of otherpossible factors affecting time spent on recreational readings such as attitudes, socialinfluence and linguistic control over the language may yield more understanding andpave the way for practical interventions to enhance the reading habits of Arab EFLtertiary students. Since this study utilizes only the quantitative approach, it isrecommended that future research use a mixed method design, namely; sequentialexplanatory design. This design, which uses both quantitative and qualitativemethods, will yield more and elaborative data and results.

The notion that Arab students do not read for pleasure is clearly misunderstood.However, based on the similarities of this study to other previous studies, there mustbe more investigations on the reasons why Arab EFL tertiary students do not investmore time on recreational reading.

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About the authorsMohammad N. Khreisat is a doctoral student at the English Language Studies Section, School ofHumanities in Universiti Sains Malaysia. His research interest includes literacy, critical literacy,Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) and ICT in language learning andteaching.

Sarjit Kaur (PhD) is an Associate Professor at the English Language Studies Section, Schoolof Humanities in Universiti Sains Malaysia. Widely published, her research interests includeEnglish for Specific Purposes (ESP), Teaching English as a Second Language (TESL), oralcommunication, learner autonomy, multiliteracies and policy research in higher education.

(The Appendix follows overleaf.)

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Appendix. Questionnaire

A. Demographic Information

• Your Gender : 1. Male 2. Female

• Your Age : _____________ Years

• Year Level : 1. Third 2. Fourth

• University ID # : ________________________

• GPA : 1. (less than 2.0) 2. (2.1 to 2.5) 3. ( 2.6 to 3.0) 4. (3.1 to 3.5) 5. (Above 3.6 )

• Parent Education:

Father: 1. Others (High school or less) 2. Diploma

3. First Degree (Bachelors) 4. Masters and above

Mother: 1. Others (High school or less) 2. Diploma

3. First Degree (Bachelors) 4. Masters and above

B. Recreational Reading Habits:

1) Please indicate the amount of time you spend each week on recreational reading (not required for classes)

WHEN CLASSES ARE IN SESSION.

1. (Less than 1 hour) 2. (1-2 hours) 3. (3-5 hours) 4. (6-10 hours) 5. (Over10 hours)

1. (Less than 1 hour) 2. (1-2 hours) 3. (3-5 hours) 4. (6-10 hours) 5. (Over10 hours)

2) Please indicate the amount of time you spend each week on recreational reading (not required for classes)

DURING VACATIONS.

3. Please indicate how often you read each of the following:

Never/Rarely Sometimes Always

Newspaper

Magazines

E-mail/chatroom/Facebook

NovelsNonfiction books ( Biography,Self-help, etc)

.

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