The Impact of Podcasts and Blogs on EFL Students’ Reading Skill: A Psycholinguistic Approach

Abstract

This study investigates how EFL Saudi learners’ reading perception (RP) skills could be enhanced by podcasting and blogging, as well as how effective they believe these strategies to be. Three male groups were chosen for this purpose from Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University, using a convenience sample technique. After that, they were randomly divided into three groups: [1] the control group (CG), [2] the blogging group (BG), and [3] the podcasting group (PG). They then underwent a pre-test, a post-test, and a treatment program (14 two-hour sessions held thrice a week). The students from the experimental groups (BG and PG) were asked to write two statements regarding the possibility of podcasting and blogging to enhance their reading perception gains. The gathered data were analyzed using thematic coding analysis and a one-way ANOVA. At the conclusion of the treatments, the blogging and podcasting groups outperformed the control group. Moreover, the results indicated no statistically significant differences between the blogging and podcasting groups. Additionally, the qualitative results revealed that learners held positive opinions about employing blogging and podcasting to enhance reading perception.