Music Listening As a Purposeful Reading Strategy among Undergraduates in South West, Nigeria: Implication for Discourse Comprehension

Abstract

The prominence of reading at any level of education has been established. Due to the fact that students are left to fashion out reading strategies themselves, significant number of them engage in self-gratifying activities while reading. Some of them smoke while others listen to music while they read. In view of these habits, this study examines the effectiveness of listening to music as a purposeful reading strategy among undergraduates in the South West, Nigeria. Through purposive sampling technique, two tertiary institutions were selected for the study. Fifty-two (52) second year students were drawn from each of the selected institutions. The instrument for the study was a test extracted from their course material entitled: Reading Achievement Test (RAT) which comprised twenty (20) test items. The reliability results r- 0.79 shows that the instrument is reliable. Two hypotheses were raised and tested using inferential statistics of t-test and Pearson Product Moment Correlation (PPMC). The study found out that: music listening as a reading strategy had no significant effects on discourse comprehension. The study further indicated that age does not have any significant relationship with students’ attention management as revealed in the test given. On the basis of the findings, amongst others, it was recommended that educators at all levels teach their students the best scientifically tested strategies to engage texts in order to achieve comprehension. Campaign against bad reading habits should be staged. Facilitators should create environment of scholarship which favors achievement in cognitive and affective outcomes for their students.