The Effect of Cohesion Awareness on the Reading Comprehension of Scientific Texts: The Case of Third Year Students in the Department of Biology and Agriculture at MMUTO

Abstract

The present study is concerned with the impact of cohesion awareness on reading comprehension of scientific texts. It aims at determining the extent to which knowledge of cohesion can help improve reading comprehension. The research is based mainly on two theoretical frameworks; Rumelhart’s Schema Theory (1980) and Perfetti’s Lexical Quality Hypothesis (1994). The research concerns third year BMD students in the department of Biology and Agriculture at Mouloud Mammeri University of Tizi-Ouzou. To this end, the present investigation is based on a mixed (quantitative and qualitative) method research. It uses a questionnaire that is distributed for a group of fifty students, for the sake of gathering more data, a test is opted for. The data are analyzed according to the qualitative content analysis and a statistical method of analysis (SPSS). On the basis of the results of the study, it is concluded that students are interested in reading in English. However, they face difficulties to understand texts. The results also reveal that if the students become more familiar with cohesion, this will help in improving their reading comprehension.