Assistive Technology for Enhancing Saudi Female Undergraduate Students’ Reading Cognitive Abilities: An Investigation of Reading Models and Their Impacts on Reading Performance

Abstract

This study examines the effects of assistive technology, specifically text-to speech (TTS) technology on enhancing Saudi EFL students’ reading cognitive abilities. The study utilized text to speech Natural Reader by Natural Soft Ltd (2022) to carry out a pretest-posttest quasi experiment, to measure students’ reading scores before and after the treatment. Instruments also include two questionnaires. 49 students, enrolled in level III reading course of the English Department at the College of Languages and Translation, at Imam Mohammed Ibn Saud Islamic University (IMSIU), Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, participated in the present study. The experiment lasted 12 weeks during the first semester of the year 2022-2023. The first questionnaire results showed that 66.7% of the students face problems in reading, with 43.8% having problems with loud reading, and 31.3% of students read less than 100 words per minute. The results also showed that 40.81% face problems related to pronunciation, vocabulary, and reading comprehension. The total score of the pre-test and posttest are in favor of posttest with mean score of (74.73 ±10.65) compared to (41.48 ±7.94) for pre-test. The findings reveal that there is an effect of assistive technology on students’ reading cognitive abilities related to reading speed, comprehension, vocabulary, and critical thinking, affirming students’ strong satisfaction with the Reader software, reaching the percentage of 87.5%. The study recommends using the technology-based reading model, proposed by the researcher, in the reading courses at Saudi universities, and investigating the linguistic changes that students experience due to the use of assistive technology in EFL.