Effects of Text Types and English Language Ability Levels on Summary Writing Performance of Thai High School Students
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Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate Thai high school summary writing skills. The researcher investigated the effects of reading text types and the students’ English language ability on their summary writing performance. The subjects were 90 Thai grade 12th students who were divided into three different levels of English language ability: High, Average and Low. Each student was asked to write two summaries of texts in different text types: description and problem-solution. The research instruments included two reading passages and a rubric scoring scheme for evaluating summary writing performance. The rubric criteria were based on (1) completeness of idea units (2) accuracy of idea units (3) paraphrasing skills and (4) total quality of the summary. The research data were analyzed by Two-Way ANOVA. The findings of the study were as follows. First, it revealed that there was not a significant difference between students’ writing summary performance in terms of text types. Second, the mean score of the students with low ability was different from the mean score of those with average and high ability. Obviously, it was revealed that the students in high language ability level possessed more effective summary skills than those in the average and the low groups. Third, there was not a significant interaction effect between text types and language ability levels. Lastly, the students’ summary writing performance was analyzed in detail. The high ability students could write better summaries than the other two groups. However, they still lacked paraphrasing skills. As for the average ability group, most of their summaries comprised some distorted or inaccurate main ideas with some unimportant details. As for the low ability groups, they lacked summary skills and needed to be taught how to read for global comprehension, to find main ideas and important details, and then to write a well-organized paragraph. The implications of the findings were discussed to support the need of instructional practice for summarizing skills which would enhance students’ reading and writing abilities in their academic future.
Article Details
ในกรณีที่กองบรรณาธิการ หรือผู้เชี่ยวชาญ ซึ่งได้รับเชิญให้เป็นผู้ตรวจบทความวิจัย หรือ บทความทางวิชาการมีความเห็นว่าควรแก้ไขความบกพร่อง ทางกองบรรณาธิการจะส่งต้นฉบับให้ ผู้เขียนพิจารณาจัดการแก้ไขให้เหมาะสมก่อนที่จะลงพิมพ์ ทั้งนี้ กองบรรณาธิการจะยึดถือความคิด เห็นของผู้เชี่ยวชาญเป็นเกณฑ์
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