The Effects of Listening Strategy Training on Students’ Listening Achievement, Strategy Use, Motivation and Self-Efficacy: First Year Social Sciences Students in Focus

Abstract

The main intention of this study was to investigate the effects of listening strategy training on students' listening achievement, listening strategy use, listening motivation and listening self efficacy in EFL classrooms. The design of the study was a quasi-experimental design that employed experimental and control groups. The subjects of the study were first-year Social Science Students of Mettu University enrolled in the 2022 academic year. The number of students in both sections (section seventeen and twenty) was 110(55 students in each section). Accordingly, 110 students from two intact sections sat for the pre-test, and filled pre-intervention questionnaires. Then after, section twenty was assigned randomly for the experimental group and section seventeen was for the control group. The experimental group has undergone the treatment for twelve weeks and the control group was taught the conventional teaching. After the treatment, both groups were given the post-test and filled post-strategy training questionnaires, then, results were compared. The data collection tools used were, listening achievement tests, listening strategy questionnaire, listening motivation questionnaire, and listening self-efficacy questionnaire. The data obtained from the pre- and post-tests, and pre- and post-intervention questionnaires, were analyzed using inferential statistics (independent sample t-test and paired sample t-test) to compare the mean scores of the pre- and the post-tests, and the pre- and post intervention questionnaires. Thus, the independent sample t-test was used to see the mean scores of the pre-and post-results of the experimental and control groups, and the paired sample t-test was used to see the mean score difference with-in a group(experimental group). Furthermore, the data collected from questionnaires were analyzed using descriptive statistics of mean and standard deviation and all run by SPSS version 23 for analyses. Finally, the results of the study revealed that the students who underwent strategy training outperformed the control group as the results of the post-test scores of the independent sample t-test for equality of Variances not assumed showed, the mean post-test scores of the experimental group (N=55, M=54.8364, SD=1.11238) and mean post-test scores of the control group (N=55, M=51.7636, SD=3.84401), t (108) =5.429, P=.001, 2-tailed, the p < 0.05. A paired sample t-test of an experimental group also showed a significant increase from the pre-test to the post-test, as t (54), -4.136, p < .000). In addition to these, the results obtained from questionnaires also revealed improvement from pre-intervention to post-intervention on the student‟s listening, listening strategy use, listening motivation and listening self-efficacy. Finally, based on the results obtained recommendations were forwarded to the concerned bodies.