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โครงการรวบรวมและจัดทําวารสารอิเล็กทรอนิกส์ มหาวิทยาลัยเกษตรศาสตร์

Tarchi’s study (2010) explored the relationship between prior knowledge and

reading comprehension of informative texts. The participants were 131 students in grade 7
in 5 secondary schools in Florence, Italy. They were assessed on different components of

reading comprehension with a main focus on prior knowledge. They were asked to read
two passages, science and history, and answer 14 opened-ended and multiple choices

questions. The results showed that the reader’s prior knowledge had an impact on the
reader’s comprehension directly and indirectly.

Methodology

This qualitative study employed a method of content analysis (Berg, 2004; Coffey
and Atkinson, 1996; Strauss and Corbin, 1983). Based on the theoretical framework regarding

types of idioms (Fernando, 1996; Makkai, 1972), the f rst part aimed to investigate the common
linguistic types of English idioms used in the editorial columns. 250 pieces of the editorial

columns (each of with was approximately 500-600 words) were gained from both two major
English newspapers. Idioms from these editorial columns of these English newspapers were

identif ed based on the major types classif ed by the two frameworks of idioms employed
in this study: the semantic framework (Fernando, 1996) and the framework of grammatical

construction ( Makkai, 1972).

The second part of the study aimed to examine the students’ abilities and perceptions
about English idioms. The instruments used in this part were a questionnaire, three reading

comprehension tests, and a semi-structured interview. A questionnaire was f rst administered
to the students to gain their personal information. Next, Reading Comprehension Test 1

(testing items at sentence level without context), Reading Comprehension Test 2 (testing
items as the excerpts from editorial columns), and Reading Comprehension Test 3 (Testing

items of the texts with contexts of simple language created by a researcher) were given
to the students. The 20 idioms included in these testing items were purposively selected to

cover all classif ed types. Students were allowed to complete the questionnaire and the
three reading comprehension tests on their own without time limit. However, they were

instructed not to look up the meaning of the idiomatic expressions in a dictionary. After

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