Reading Strategy Use and Field of Study: A Mixed-Methods Study

This study was an attempt to explore the reading strategy use of Iranian M.A. students across three different fields of study. Eighty-two M.A. students of power engineering, physics, and communication were selected by a Nelson test and the reading comprehension section of a TOEFL. The reading comprehension section of the TOEFL served also as a specific task which helped participants report their strategy use. Both qualitative, think-aloud, and quantitative, SORS, procedures were used to tap the participants’ use of reading strategies and to complement the findings. The results of these two procedures indicate that the use of overall, global, problem-solving, and support strategies by Iranian M.A. students was slightly different across different fields of study. Problem-solving and support strategies were the most and the least frequently used strategies, respectively. Moreover, reading strategy use of Iranian M.A. students, studying power engineering, physics, and communication was not related to their academic fields of study.