Reappraisal of the Pivotal Role of Social Interactionist Perspectives in Furthering Learners’ Reading, Attitudinal Dexterities

Abstract

Constructivist and social interactionist psychologies have indisputably opened up novel, unprecedented horizons for current pedagogical research which is centered on diversification of education and learner empowerment. Amid the myriad axioms, argumentations and theories configured under the auspices of social interactionist views toward instruction lies the vast body of techniques and principles falling under the flag of Vygotsky's groundbreaking theory widely known as ‘sociocultural theory’. An overriding component of Vygotskian line of argumentation, scaffolding is what mainly constitutes the pivotal cornerstone of the current scrutiny. Thus, seeking to probe the feasible impact of providing teacher intervention and peer assistance, in tandem with the underlying tenets of scaffolding theory, on learners’ possible reading gains and test attitude modifications, the researchers in the current study opted for a sample of 94 academic EFL freshmen. Data required for the study were amassed through two separate administrations of a standardized reading comprehension test, along with a questionnaire entitled ‘Student Opinion Survey’ (composed of two subscales of Task Importance and Task Effort), prior and successive to running treatment. In line with the final upshots gained through the study, it was found that no significant difference existed between the reading comprehension performance of experimental and control groups on the posttest. However, experimental group participants were characterized by undergoing more attitudinal changes, compared to control group learners, (in terms of both task importance and task effort components of the questionnaire) at the culmination of the research.