The development of reading skills in concept mapped pre-reading activities via Xiaohuazhuo: Does the group size matter?

Reading offers language development opportunities and reading ability impacts learners’ academic achievements. Previous studies supported the value of collaborative reading in developing individual reading ability. In the current digital era, the effectiveness of digital-enhanced collaborative reading (DECR) in assisting reading comprehension is recognized. However, a paucity of studies considered the pre-reading activities and the effects of group size. The current study addresses these by examining whether learners in small groups of two, three, four, and five differ in reading skills (i.e., overall reading performance, skimming, and scanning), concept map performance, collective efficacy, and satisfaction in the Xiaohuazhuo-based group concept mapped pre-reading (XGCMP) activity. A pre-and post-test design will be conducted among 97 EFL Chinese learners in a junior college. Reading skills are evaluated by reading comprehension tasks. The within- and between-group differences of reading skills are compared through paired t tests and a one-way MANOVA. The comparison of concept map scores across groups is subjected to a one-way ANOVA. Learners’ responses to the questionnaires of collective efficacy and satisfaction in the post-test are analyzed by one-way ANOVAs to examine the differences across groups. The results may indicate the importance of pre-reading activities and remind teachers to consider group size when they arrange group activities.