Content influences on listening ability of fifth and eighth graders and its relationship to reading

Thesis (M.Ed.)--University of Melbourne, Faculty of Education, 2002Listening plays a significant role from infancy to adulthood. It is essential to students' learning success at all levels of education. This study investigates how fifth and eighth graders listen strategically to spoken texts that differ in their level of imagery and their form. It compares listening strategies and beliefs about listening for students at these year levels and how those beliefs affected their listening and reading comprehension. Data were collected from 25 male and 37 female students in Year 5 and 26 female students in Year 8. These students came from schools in western and southeastern suburbs of Melbourne. Four types of materials were used for analysing listening in the study: (1) listening memory tasks for unrelated words, sentences and stories, with immediate recall at all levels and the recall of words and stories after a delay, (2) a self-reporting questionnaire to assess students' beliefs regarding listening in general, and actions for specific listening tasks completed, (3) an evaluation of cognitive styles and (4) a reading comprehension test. Research findings indicated that the type of information influenced fifth and eighth graders in the recall of stories. Information that was in imagery mode was easier to recall. The imagery-verbal dimension of cognitive styles exerted some influence on the listening ability of Year 5 students. It did not influence the listening ability of female students in Year 8. Female students in Year 5 performed better than male students in the same year level in all listening tasks. As well, they achieved a higher level than Year 8 female students in the delayed recall of abstract words, the immediate and delayed recall of unrelated words and stories. The reading ability of males in Year 5 and females in Year 8 was associated with the ability to listen to stories. Few listening beliefs of students appeared to influence their performance in the specific listening tasks. There are valid implications for teaching. With the increased usage of new digital media or multimedia, our definition of "listening" may change. It may be necessary to develop new listening modes that include different listening processes. It would be worthwhile to explore teaching listening strategies using multimedia. To improve listening is a continuous task