IAFOR Journal of Education: Technology in Education

Volume 8 – Issue 2 – 2020

Facilitating Online Reading Comprehension in Enhanced Learning Environment
Using Digital Annotation Tools
Ruhil Amal Azmuddin
Universiti Malaysia Pahang
Malaysia
Nor Fariza Mohd Nor
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
Malaysia
Afendi Hamat
Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia
Malaysia

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Abstract
The use of technology has now become an integral part of higher education in Malaysia becauseof its positive outcomes in teaching and learning. Despite its use, students are not able to fully
benefit from its full potential. This study investigated the use of digital annotation tools inInteractive Reading for Academic Disciplines to facilitate reading of English for Science andTechnology materials in a blended course among university students. Data were collected from12 students enrolled in English for Technical Communication in a public university on the East
Coast of Peninsular Malaysia. Data collection consisted of online annotations and focus groupinterviews. Analysis was descriptive and thematic, using SPSS and NVivo software,
respectively. Inter-rater reliability analysis was measured using Cohen Kappa reliability
analysis that yielded an almost perfect score, proving that the data were reliable. The findings
revealed that digital annotation tools facilitated reading comprehension among students in an
online reading environment. Annotation analyses revealed consistency in interview data when
students were able to paraphrase, extend and synthesize ideas. An implication from this study
suggests that training students’ regarding strategies on how to deal with annotation tasks should
be mandatory. This is integral for students to achieve comprehension of English for Scienceand Technology materials in an online environment.
Keywords: digital annotation tools, online reading, English for specific purposes, English forscience and technology

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Online materials have now become one of the main sources of knowledge for students,
especially in academic settings. With the spread of digital educational spaces such as blogs,
Online Discussion Forums (ODF), Wikis and Learning Management Systems (LMS), there isa rising demand for materials that can be read in digital formats. Within this context, it is theeducator’s role to equip students to read online and explore online features so that they canmake the most of the myriad of online resources (Gilbert, 2017) and also to enhance learnerautonomy. If students are not well equipped, they will face challenges reading online because
the materials change and distract readers with multimodal features (Cho & Afflerbach, 2017).
Hence, teaching students how to read effectively online is crucial as library materials have been
digitized to create e-books and online articles.
Research on online reading comprehension is expanding from traditional comprehension
models to include “the purposes that drive online reading, communicative outcomes of online
reading, and the continuously changing nature of the strategies, skills and dispositions that are
required during online reading comprehension” (Leu Zawilinski, Castek, Banerjee, Housand,Liu & O'Neil, 2007, p.5). Moreover, according to Murugaiah (2016), a number of ComputerAssisted Language Learning (CALL) technologies (for example electronic dictionaries andmultimedia annotations) are commonly employed in teaching and learning as they provide
assistance for learners in various ways. For example, there is a belief that using various online
annotation types is a good, supportive reading strategy for learners (Thoms & Poole, 2017).
Huang (2014) conducted a study to examine the effectiveness of online versus paper-based
reading strategy instruction on EFL learners’ reading comprehension on fifty-seven students.
The result revealed that the second most positive feedback was that the online highlighting
function of the annotation tool facilitated incidental vocabulary learning because the colourcoded highlight function helped students tracked the parts that require attention. They also used
the highlighting function to re-read for understanding. Ridder (2002, as cited in Huang, 2014)
reported that the highlighted or visible hyperlinks increase students’ willingness to consult
electronic dictionaries. In some cases, annotations or dictionary definitions are available forstudents but these are not readily accessible and students cannot use these tools to their fullpotential. Herold (2014) contends that students need to work with the online tools, which arevery useful, to learn at the highest level. Such online tools that can assist students in learning
include Digital Annotation Tools (DAT). Hence, to understand ways in which DAT facilitateteaching and learning, this study addressed the following research questions:
1. What are the types of annotations made by students in Interactive Reading for
Academic Disciplines (iREAD)?
2. How do annotation tools facilitate students reading of English for Science andTechnology (EST) online materials?
Previous studies have concentrated on the effectiveness of annotations on reading
comprehension. Some of these studies have concentrated on the use of annotations but havefailed to delineate the actual process involved in using annotations to assist students to reachhigher reading comprehension levels (Tseng, Yeh & Yang, 2015). However, far too little
attention has been paid to the importance of annotations in teaching and learning. There is stillmuch uncertainty that exists about the relation between annotation types and online reading
comprehension. If teachers are not able to identify exactly which annotation types are usefulfor reading comprehension, they will not be able to determine reading instructions to promotestudents’ comprehension levels. Thus, information obtained from what Malaysian English as a
Second Language (ESL) university students do while reading EST online materials would
contribute to the pedagogical aspect of English for Specific Purposes (ESP). This paper begins

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with a literature review related to the study, then describes the methodology used, presents theresults, provides a discussion of these, and lastly draws conclusions.
Literature Review
Theoretical Discussion
One reading model that is important in the current study is the Interactive Reading Model(Rumelhart, 1977). According to Rumelhart (1977), reading combines both bottom-up and topdown processes. Interactive models recognize the simultaneous interaction of lower levelprocessing skills and higher-level cognitive skills. According to Duke and Pearson (2002),
when it comes to comprehension, visual representation will help students understand, organize
and remember. For example, highlighting information in a text is a supportive reading strategy
as it allows readers to remember what they read and extract important elements. Thus, someelements of annotations conform to reading comprehension theories because these elements
provide interactive reading opportunities that help students identify the key elements ofparagraphs (Lo, Yeh & Seng, 2013). The key elements in the interactive reading model are
important in the current study as students interact with texts by identifying parts of online
reading materials through the use of DAT.
Previous studies report students’ reading comprehension and their recall of information are
based on a student’s ability to recognize organizational structures (Lo et al., 2013, Gilbert,
2017; Ruhil Amal, Nor Fariza & Afendi, 2018). The ability to recognize organizational
structures allows students to create a mental representation of the information and to see thelogical links made by the author. Good readers can use text structures to retrieve the main ideas
and to help them memorize propositions gained from reading. There is a large volume of
published studies describing the role of teaching text structures to students (Duke & Pearson,
2002; Moss, 2004; Pardo, 2004). What is not yet clear is the impact of the types of annotations
that students make in identifying text structures in achieving comprehension. This indicates aneed to understand the various ways that DAT assist students in learning.
Blended Learning in Higher Institutions
The popularity of blended learning is increasing because it integrates online technology suchas learning management systems and platforms, making learning more interactive. Previous
studies recorded higher achievements and better attitudes toward learning when theeffectiveness of blended learning was compared to conventional teaching approaches (Thang,Wong, Noorizah, Rosniah, Najihah & Kemboja, 2012). Educators use blended learning as an
approach to teaching because of its potential to maximize learning and create a more efficientlearning environment. For example, blended learning is believed to increase communication
skills (Wang, Wooa & Zhao, 2009), improve critical thinking skills (Güzer & Caner, 2014),
and to support collaborative learning (Haryani, Wan Faezah & Nor Aini, 2012). In Malaysia,
50% of courses in higher institutions offer online courses because it is an effective means tocommunicate within the teaching and learning context in the current era (Norazah, Mohamed
Amin & Zaidan, 2011). Taken together, these studies reflect the benefits and need toincorporate blended learning in tertiary education contexts.
For example, in a blended learning English as a Foreign Language (EFL) environment, Lo etal. (2013) proposed an interactive approach in learning paragraph structure through the use of
an online annotation system, Paragraph Annotator. Paragraph Annotator includes threehighlight buttons; yellow for topic sentence, blue for controlling idea, and green for supporting
details. These functions allow readers to analyze paragraphs and use annotation tools to add

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personal ideas. Both a Cued Recall Test and a Free Recall Test were used to assess students’comprehension between experimental and controlled groups. The results revealed significantly
better performance in both tests. However, the author overlooks the fact that annotation types
contribute to performance. The results of this study suggest that online annotation technology
provides EFL students with a flexibility to interact with the text that would not be accomplishedin reading books alone.
Online Reading
With the development of technology, reading has shifted to using non-traditional media suchas reading information on the world wide web in the form of videos, pictures, sounds,
animations and hyperlinks known as online reading (Sung, Wu, Chen & Chang, 2015).
According to Sung et al. (2015), reading online often creates a “hypertextual” form of readingthat consists of nodes and hyperlinks. Reading this type of information requires the information
to be read according to the order of the nodes. Even though hypertexts are considered to be
non-linear, many still read them in a linear mode, merely transferring offline reading skills toonline reading. This concept has recently been challenged by Kiili & Leu (2019) who believein the complexity of the online reading and the challenges students face especially incollaborative online reading. There are specific strategies that are more appropriate for online
reading.
However, there are various strategies used to manage online information and to navigate
successfully by selecting links that are useful. This ability is required for successful online
reading as it allows the reader to understand and construct potential meanings (Ruhil Amal etal., 2018). As proposed by Cho and Afflerbach (2017), there are three levels of building
coherence in online reading: information comprehension; intertextual connection; andconstruction of reading paths. The first online reading strategy is related to traditional reading
strategies such as infering, analyzing text information, and evaluating whether the text fulfills
the reading objectives. The second online reading strategy, intertextual connection, refers tosynthesizing multiple online sources that require multiple-text linking strategies to criticallycompare, evaluate, and corroborate the information found in diverse documents, to identify
differences between sources, and to integrate content from different sources. The third strategy(construction of reading paths) refers to the construction of meaning through networked
information technology that requires careful evaluation and selection of links. What is not clear
is the impact of DAT on reading comprehension.
Digital Annotation Tools
More and more materials are becoming available as electronic documents, increasing the needfor mechanisms that allow online annotations because annotation mechanisms have thepotential to enhance reading online (Chiu-Jung & Pei-Lin, 2012). Annotation mechanisms suchas EDUCOSM (Nokelainen, Kurhila, Miettinen & Tirri, 2003) and PAMS (Su, Yang, Hwang& Zhang, 2010), allow students to annotate the same documents, and share and provide
feedback on the annotations (Tseng et al., 2015) to improve their reading comprehension.
Several researchers contend that annotation methods such as underlining unfamiliar
vocabulary, marking main ideas or key words, or adding notes for reflection improves reading
comprehension (Marshall, 1997). These annotation methods minimize the cognitive load of thereading process (Chun & Payne, 2004), encourage understanding by connecting information ina text (Abuseileek, 2012), and improve critical reading skills (Johnson, Archibald &Tenenbaum, 2010). Annotation methods also provide interactive reading opportunities to
identify key elements of paragraphs (Lo et al., 2013). Taken together, these are important
processes in reading academic online materials.

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Recent studies point out the importance of DAT to enhance teaching and learning because
annotated texts allow for better comprehension in comparison to those without annotations(Chen, Hwang, & Wang 2012). For example, annotation software such as RedPencil
encouraged students to be involved in their learning activities (Ahern, 2005). Students caneasily use RedPencil to submit assignments and to view others’ annotations or comments. It is
not surprising that annotations can help students’ comprehension in various ways. Despite this,much uncertainty still exists about the relation between annotation types and comprehension.
In another study of an annotation technology called HyLighter, social annotation was
examined. This study found students exhibited more critical-thinking skills than metacognitionand comprehension skills when working in groups compared to working individually (Johnson
et al., 2010). The study concluded that annotation, reflection and highlighting will not have asignificant impact if conducted alone.
The ability to highlight the main points becomes an important reading strategy that guides
students to achieve overall understanding of the online materials. Highlighting texts support
reading because of three reasons as hypothesized by Li, Tseng & Chen. (2016). Firstly,
highlighting is an encoding process that identifies key parts of a text. Secondly, highlighting
texts captures readers’ attention because they are able to recall texts easily compared to texts
that are not highlighted. Lastly, highlighting texts acts as visual signals that allow retrieval of
critical points during a reviewing process. Thus, annotations such as highlighting texts help
learners monitor their understanding of the text as they decipher the L2 reading (Thoms &Poole, 2017). Together, these studies provide important insights into the need to utilize DAT
to assist with the reading of online academic texts.
Methodology
The focus of the current study was to explore processes involved in reading EST materials inan online environment. This was conducted in an ESP course named English for TechnicalCommunication (ETC) that utilized DAT in an online reading platform named Interactive
Reading for Academic Disciplines (iREAD) for teaching and learning. Hence, a mixed method
approach was used as the research design because descriptive statistical data from students’use of DAT were used to support the data gained from the focus group interviews.
Participants
The study adopted a purposeful sampling method to obtain rich data. Purposeful samplingrefers to intentionally selecting a sample that explores the main concept being studied (Creswell& Plano 2011). Hence, a sample of 55 students from 614 students enrolled in English forTechnical Communication from various Science and Technology courses for Semester 1,
2016/17 were selected. Twelve students were then selected to be a part of the qualitative datacollection. There was an equal number of male and female students aged between 21 and 23
years old. All the students were taking the same English course; a compulsory level 2 English
course at the university. Each student was provided a consent form to be a part of the study.
The course is a blended course, where students met twice weekly for 2-hours tutorial and 2hours computer labs. Students were participating because they had to for this class. However,during the initial briefing, students were briefed on the research project and were given options
to move to other classes if they do not wish to participate. This is to ensure that they know theirinvolvement is entirely voluntary and there are no repercussions for them not getting involved.

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Instruments
Focus Group Interview protocols. One of the instruments used to collect data was throughFocus Group Interview (FGI) protocols. The objective was to collect a shared understandingthat focused on the current study and to generate data from the group. The interview protocol
was designed to gauge the opinions of students about the use of DAT in iREAD. The questions
were created by the researcher, which were then verified by experts in the field. The FGI
protocol consists of questions related to the use of DAT such as highlighting and writing down
annotation notes.
Online reading system: iREAD. An online reading platform called the Interactive Readingfor Academic Disciplines (iREAD) was used to obtain annotation data. The system wasdeveloped by Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia experts (Nor Fariza, Afendi, Hazita, Noorizah& Vengadasamy, 2014) with various functionalities such as DAT, discussion forums, video
and audio features. Although the system consists of various online tools, the current study
highlights just one of the main features, the annotation tools. The annotation tools in iREAD
contain two features. The first feature allows students to highlight online reading materials withvarious colours such as yellow, red and green. The second feature allows students to write
notes, comments or information about the texts that were highlighted.
Online reading materials. Text selection was based on an ETC module utilized by students
during the semester. Each text was analyzed according to the Flesch Kincaid Readability Index
that generates the level of difficulty of the reading texts. This allows the researcher to determine
the suitability of the texts according to the students’ proficiency level. Table 1 summarizes the
topics covered during the two weeks.
Table 1: Topics in English for Technical Communication
Week
5
6

Topic
Process Explanations: How to
use a compass
Directional Process: At thefactory, from bean to bar

Flesch reading ease63.9 – Standard/ average
54.9 – Fairly difficult toread

In Week 5, the lesson required students to read a 397-word essay about how to use a compass.
The essay is written in a technical description format that consists of the vital elements (i.emain parts, dimensions) required in a complete write up. The essay consists of four paragraphs
describing how to use a compass and how compasses work. The readability index for this essay
was 63.9 – making it standard or average difficulty. The idea of selecting an average readability
text was to introduce a more difficult text in the following week. Hence, in Week 6, students
were required to read an essay entitled “At the factory: from bean to bar” with a readability
index of 54.9, which was fairly difficult to read. Here, students were required to highlight andsummarize in their own words the process of making chocolates.
Data Collection Procedures
Annotation data were collected in Week 5 and 6 during a 14-week semester. For the annotation
activities, students were required to highlight parts of the text and then rewrite in their own
words what each highlighted text meant. This involved four steps in using the digital annotation
tools: selecting the element to be highlighted; applying the corresponding highlighted color(yellow, green or red); adding comments to the highlighted text; and, clicking the save button.
At the same time, students were encouraged to use red highlighter to identify the topic sentence,

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yellow to identify central ideas and green for supporting details. However, not all students usedthe colored highlighter accordingly. Figure 1 labels the process for using the digital annotation
tools.

Figure 1: Screenshot of annotation process
Each annotation consists of either a word, a sentence-length, or a paragraph, which were madeusing the DAT in iREAD, where each annotation was considered to be a unit of analysis. The
data were tabulated and described according to the themes created and illustrated in thefindings. FGI was conducted in Week 7, after the students completed activities related toTechnical Descriptions and Process Explanations. FGIs were conducted in two groups with 6
students in each group. The focus of the interview was to reflect on the use of DAT to facilitate
reading of EST online materials while completing the activities in iREAD. Data were analyzed
thematically.
Data Analysis
The study analyzed annotations using content analysis based on categories adapted fromMarshall (1997) as cited in Tseng et al. (2015) where Minf refers to marking information. Twoforms of Minf were categorized by the researcher as highlighted texts that identify keywords
or main ideas, and written notes that are rephrases of a keyword or main idea and summarized
ideas. The second type of annotations were Mvoc, which refers to marking vocabulary. Thus,
two different highlights identify different elements of the online text.
The FGI data were analysed using the six steps proposed by Creswell (2014), which includes
preparing and organizing the data, exploration of data through coding, creating themes,
representing themes through narratives, interpreting the results and, validating the accuracy offindings. Data were validated using Cohen Kappa inter rater reliability analysis based on thedeveloped themes. The calculation yielded a K value of 0.7, which indicated a substantial
agreement, showing that the data analysis had a high reliability.
Results
In order to understand types and ways annotation tools facilitated reading of EST online
materials, data are described thematically under two headings: identify paragraph structure,and improve understanding. The data described are gained from FGI and annotations made by
students.

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Identify paragraph structure
The following section discusses the use of iREAD’s annotation tools in identifying paragraphstructure when reading “How to use a compass”. The data are presented in the form of interview
excerpts (as depicted in words and phrases which are in bold) as well as a tabular format
through the activities students completed. The researcher highlighted the bold words that
identify the important points stated by students during the interviews. Students believe thatannotation tools assist them in identifying paragraph structure when reading a text. Theinterview excerpts in Table 2 demonstrate this point.
Table 2: Interview excerpts 1
Student
Student L
Student S

Student V
Student C

Interview excerpts
We can know the passage flow and also we can know how many main parts, howmany sub-parts according to the body. The body and the parts
Let’s say when we highlight, we can know what the paragraph is about like this part
we can talk about body then we can know the sub-part. This paragraph is talked
about body part, the function, dimension or description to us. I can know myreading progress
I can highlight the main idea, sub parts, main parts to let me recall back what I
have read. Oh, this is what source of description is. This is that and all that.
We do the activity for the technical description. So we want to know that which partyou want to highlight first. For example, you want to know the size, the material, thecolour, so we will focus on that

The interview excerpts in Table 2 are students’ claims that annotation tools assist them in
identifying parts of a paragraph structure such as “main parts”, “sub-parts”, “dimension”,“description” and “color” in understanding a technical description. In view of this, online
annotations made by students were analyzed in order to validate students’ ability to recognize
paragraph structure of a technical description as claimed by students in the interviews. The
annotation activity that was explored was based on the lesson in Week 5 (see Table 1). For thisparticular activity, none of the students highlighted texts on vocabulary (Mvoc). Table 3
summarizes the types of annotations made by students.
Table 3: Summary of annotations on Process Explanations
No

Student

1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12

Student E
Student T
Student L
Student G
Student S
Student K
Student V
Student J
Student C
Student R
Student H
Student A
Total

Highlighted
text (Minf)
9
8
4
8
0
4
7
1
6
9
4
6
66

15

Written notes(Minf)
6
8
4
8
0
4
7
1
6
8
4
0
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Based on Table 3, all of the annotations made by students were content-based annotations(Minf). This means all annotations highlighted and written were identification of paragraphstructure. There were 85% of written notes and only 15% were highlighted texts. This denotes
students were able to identify parts of a technical description. The following screenshots areexamples illustrating annotations made by students in identifying parts of a paragraph structure.
As shown in Figure 2, Student V was able to annotate parts of a paragraph structure. First,
Student V identified ‘orientation of parts’ as a key component in the introduction of a technicaldescription. Then, Student V identified “1st step” as part of how to use the compass. The otherannotations were also “2nd step” and “3rd step”. Student V was able to annotate 7 parts of aparagraph structure (see Table 3). These annotations are consistent with her claims in interview
excerpt: I can highlight the main idea, sub parts, main parts to let me recall back what I haveread. The bold words identify the important points stated by students during the interview.
Annotation No. 1:

Annotation No. 2:

Figure 2: Screenshot of annotation No. 1 and 2 by Student V

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Figure 3 demonstrates three examples in identification of paragraph structure by Student C.
Annotation No. 1:

Annotation No. 2:

Annotation No. 3:

Figure 3: Screenshot of annotations Nos. 1, 2 and 3 by Student C
Annotations Nos. 2 and 3 were both part of introduction of a technical description that consistsof “the shape and location of the object” as well as “the purpose of sub-part” as part of thecontent element in a technical description. Overall, Student C is consistent in being able toidentify paragraph structures as claimed in interview excerpt “…you want to know the size, thematerial, the colour, so we will focus on that. The bold words identify the important points
stated by students during the interview.

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Figure 4 demonstrates two examples in identification of paragraph structure made by Student E.
Annotation No. 1:

Annotation No. 2:

Figure 4: Screenshot of annotation no. 1 and 2 by Student E
Student E was able to annotate “how does a pole work” and “function of main part” as seen in
Figure 4. In total, he was able to make 12 annotations (see Table 3), in which 3 did not include
any written notes. This indicated that Student E understood parts of an essay on a technicaldescription and was able to identify technical description essay structure.
Improves Understanding
Another major finding was that reading online materials using DAT helps students comprehend
the texts better because they are able to paraphrase the text based on their own understanding(as depicted in words and phrases which are in bold). The researcher highlighted the bold words
that identify the important points stated by students during the interviews. This theme wasderived from interviews about “key stages of making chocolates”. The interview excerpts inTable 4 demonstrate this point. The researcher highlighted the bold words that identify theimportant points stated by students during the interviews.

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Table 4: Interview excerpts 2
Student
Student K
Student E
Student LInterview excerpts
We annotate in our way, so we understand better…we can just summarize all themain point then we can know about what the passage say about. It is more clear whenreading the text
For me the annotation tools is quite useful because when the key-point is there andhow they elaborate is very important and maybe we can rephrase it into anotherwords so that we can easily understand about that
I think it [annotation tools] is useful because it is easier for us to understand what
the text is going to talk about.

Based on Table 4, students K, E and L believe that DAT provide the opportunity to annotate
the information read online using their own linguistic knowledge to achieve comprehension.
This allows for the opportunity to elaborate the online information to reach comprehension. As
a result, learning becomes meaningful when understanding is attained.
According to students, using DAT when reading online materials improves understanding
because they were given the opportunity to highlight and then rewrite (through written
annotations) the ideas. This was important for students because the online reading materials
were complicated because of its S & T entities. This is further elaborated in Table 5. The
researcher highlighted the bold words that identify the important points stated by students
during the interviews.
Table 5: Interview excerpts 3
Student
Student E
Student H
Student C
Student A
Student K

Student R

Interview excerpt
I can read much more better than before this, because last time some of the words I
really can’t understand, throughout iREAD and those annotation by phrase and all that,
I can easily understand some of the new word that never seen before
While we are writing or going to present something. We have the ideas. The
manufacturing of the rice, the process. Those are all ideas that I now know andunderstandErm after we do some activity that we feel that we will more easy to understandabout what really want to do in the activity related about the activity and what not todo.
It makes me more understand the text and helps me analyze from sentence tosentence, assists me to find out main idea and explanations. Gives me an overall
understanding of the text that I readWe can, we use the tools so that we can easily know every details of the subject
about. Yeah, we can also know important, what the subject is mainly about the parts
or something. So when I do this it makes reading become easier to understandbecause I can organize it this way
Because previously when I read all these scientific passage, it is all in exam, it is all
for exam purpose. So that we just like read the question and find the answer, but
through this iREAD, we actually reading a passage, analyze the passage and thenwe understand in our own ways

All six students believe that DAT assisted them in understanding because it provides an outlet
to express comprehension of S & T information. As illustrated in Table 5, one possible
implication in achieving comprehension of EST online materials is when students were able tosummarize the main points. These responses illustrate the students’ ability to understand theonline materials because they were able to annotate the reading text in a way which is19

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comprehensible to them. For example, when students were able to paraphrase and elaborate thereading materials that relate to their academic background, they were also able to organize theirunderstanding accordingly. What this means is that topics such as processes that seem to becomplicated may be less complicated to understand. This is significantly important because
learning S & T in a SL can be rather challenging.
In order to validate the data obtained from the interviews, the study analyzed the annotations
made by students. This consists of Minf for both highlighted texts and annotation notes madeby students. The purpose is to confirm the students’ ability to understand the EST online
reading materials as claimed in the focus group interviews. Table 6 summarizes the annotations
made by students based on the activity in Week 6 (see Table 1).
Table 6: Summary of annotations on Directional Process
No
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12

Student
Student E
Student T
Student L
Student G
Student S
Student K
Student V
Student J
Student C
Student R
Student H
Student A
Total

Highlighted text (Minf)
26
32
22
9
16
16
0
3
26
29
24
4
207

Annotation notes (Minf)
10
4
22
9
6
16
0
2
14
11
17
0
111

Table 6 reveals a total of 207 texts that were highlighted and 111 of which included written
notes. This means that 54% were the reproduction of main ideas. This shows that students
understand the texts as claimed in the FGIs. They reproduced the main ideas based on theirbackground knowledge and linguistic knowledge. This is complementary to Schema Theory(Carrell, Devine & Eskey, 1988), where background knowledge is matched with textual data.
Samples of annotations made by some of the students are shared in Figure 5.
Annotation No. 1:

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Annotation No. 2:

Figure 5: Screenshot of annotation no. 1 and 2 by Student R
Based on Figure 5, Student R was able to elaborate the first step of making chocolates whichis “roasting”. Throughout this activity, Student R was also able to identify each key stage
systematically. For example, he was able to identify the third stage which is “grounding”. As
seen in annotation no. 3, he paraphrased the idea through changing the sentence based on his
knowledge and interpretation. This is an indication of the use of support reading strategy(Anderson, 2003). As such, Student R was able to use proper reading strategy to facilitate
reading of EST online materials.
Annotation No. 1:

Annotation No 2:

Figure 6: Screenshot of annotation No.1 and 2 by Student L

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Figure 6 provides data on annotation notes made by Student L. Student L was able to identify‘supporting details’ and elaborate each supporting details. For example, in both annotations,Student L managed to write the supporting details based on his own interpretations. This isconsistent with his interview extract “I think it [annotation tools] is useful because it is easierfor us to understand what the text is going to talk about”. The bold words identify the important
points stated by students during the interviews. Thus, Student L was able to show his
understanding of EST online materials through the annotations that were made. Figure 7 areannotations made by Student T.
Annotation No. 1:

Annotation No. 2:

Annotation No. 3:

Figure 7: Screenshot of annotation numbers 1, 2 and 3 by Student T
Figure 7 illustrates three examples of annotation notes made by Student T. For annotation No.
1, Student T rephrased the idea of the first sentence in the paragraph to illustrate understandingof the new information read. In annotations Nos. 2 and 3, Student T was able to rewrite the22

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sentence into his own understanding by interpreting the text based on his knowledge, thus
generating meaning. This was seen throughout the annotation activity that Student T
completed. According to Schema Theory, reading is an interactive and constructive process,where reading generates meaning through the process of relating the textual information toexisting knowledge (Carrell et al., 1988). Hence, annotations made by Student T illustrate that.
Discussion
The examples shared on written annotations produced by some of the students demonstrates
that students were able to identify paragraph structure as admitted by students in the FGIs. The
findings are consistent with previous research that concluded identifying paragraph structures
as an important entity to assist students in understanding of main ideas, thus develop reading
comprehension (Carrell et al., 1988; Meyer, Wijekumar, Middlemiss, Higley, Lei, Meier &Spielvogel et al., 2010). In relation to this, identification of paragraph structure is important forreading comprehension. This is because identifying paragraph structures leads to recognizing
and understanding main ideas of the paragraphs (Lo et al., 2013). In addition, utilizing DAT
assists students to understand these technical S & T materials, making reading academic texts
in English less complicated for ESL learners.
The findings revealed a close relation to Schema Theory where reading is considered aconstructive and active process that require readers to understand information based on
retrieving and applying previous knowledge. As hypothesized by Li et al (2016), highlighting
texts supports reading as it identifies key parts, recall information and act as visual signals. Allof these elements are important for ESL learners who are reading ESP texts in their SL.
Moreover, highlighting coupled with written annotations is powerful because it contextualizes
and synthesizes ideas. These findings play a complementary role in the Interactive Reading
Model (Rumelhart, 1977). It is believed that interactive reading provides opportunities to help
identify key elements of paragraphs which conforms to some elements of annotations. This
allow students to be explicitly ready to deal with syntactic and discourse features that are
generally used in the language of EST more easily with the use of DAT. In addition, dataobtained with regards to identifying paragraph structure and improved understanding were
triangulated with annotation analyses, confirming the validity and importance of DAT.
Finally, a number of important limitations need to be considered. Firstly, there were sometechnical constraints in using iREAD such as the inability for students to change the highlighted
colors twice. Instead, double highlighting was made. Secondly, DAT in iREAD should include
social annotation functions to integrate a more holistic approach to teaching and learning. This
would encourage collaborative learning among students. This could significantly increase amore interactive teaching and learning approach that is important at tertiary level.
Conclusion
The results reveal that DAT facilitate understanding of EST online materials, since DAT
facilitate the process of adding, editing and modifying information in electronic form without
making any changes to the resource itself. This was demonstrated in examples discerned fromthe annotations in which most students were able to identify paragraph structure and improveunderstanding of the reading materials. The various colors, such as yellow and green, in thehighlighting tools assist in reducing the cognitive overload because the highlighting tools
appear to provide meaningful cues for students. The highlighting process and written
annotations are significant in the process of contextualizing and synthesizing ideas, which

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consequently leads to interactive reading. The process of contextualizing and synthesizing
ideas will enable students to be prepared and ready in dealing with syntactic and discoursefeatures that are generally used in the language of EST more easily. Furthermore, thehighlighting features allow students to focus on the reading task, while being engaged in the
annotation process. The annotations can also be seen as an additional layer of information to
the existing resources offline, such as discussion in class with the lecturer and other students.
To support this, data obtained on how the students identify the paragraph structure as part ofthe comprehension process in reading the materials were triangulated with annotation analyses.
The results confirmed the validity and importance of DAT.
With regards to the Schema Theory, where reading is considered a constructive and active
process that requires readers to understand information based on retrieving and applying
previous knowledge, highlighting texts significantly supports reading as it identifies key parts,
aids recall information, and acts as visual signals. Past studies have proven that learners’
comprehension would also be higher when important words, phrases and sentences arehighlighted as opposed to when they were not highlighted.
The present study is one of few studies that examined ESL students annotation types in reading
EST online materials in Malaysia. There is a need for future research identifying types ofannotations based on various ESP subjects such as English for Medical Purposes and English
for Legal Purposes. Different subject areas may affect learners use of annotations. Learners
may provide different forms of annotations given in different contexts. Different texts and tasks
may lead to different approaches in annotating by the learners. This study found a significancein online reading platforms such as iREAD in assisting students in reading EST online
materials in their SL. Overall, DAT was able to assist, facilitate and support learning; in a vitalarea. Reading is an important skill and plays a significant role in successful learning.
Acknowledgement
This research was supported by Universiti Malaysia Pahang (UMP) research ID: RDU
1603142.

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Corresponding author: Ruhil Amal Azmuddin
Contact email: ruhilamal@ump.edu.my27