Katarina Zamborova | UEB - The University of Economics in Bratislava (original) (raw)
Papers by Katarina Zamborova
Exploration of the first-year university students’ metacognitive awareness about reading strategies
There have been a vast number of studies on reading strategies from different angles performed at... more There have been a vast number of studies on reading strategies from different angles performed at various age levels. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has brought a challenge to students´ lives, especially at the university level where they have to struggle with reading many materials online and offline. Therefore, this study investigated the levels of three different strategies of metacognitive awareness: global reading strategy, problem-solving strategy, and support reading strategy among 192 Slovak freshmen university students in a Business English class during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings reveal that the students used problem-solving strategies the most, followed by global and support reading strategies the least. The results also indicate a difference between male and female students at individual levels of reading strategies. The study proposes a set of recommendations with an alliance of COVID-19 learning environment based on the results such as taking notes while readin...
Contemporary Educational Technology
The article presents the research of empirical mixed methods on the use of a modern mobile readin... more The article presents the research of empirical mixed methods on the use of a modern mobile reading app compared to traditional forms of teaching in English business classes in higher education in Slovakia. The research belongs to the theoretical frame of the mobile assisted language learning field that has generated an interest since the early 1990 thanks to the development of mobile technologies, their features, and their functions all over the world. The research sample consisted of 40 freshman students from the University of Economics in Bratislava who were equally divided into control and experimental groups. The experimental treatment lasted one semester and was based on analyzing books on a biweekly basis from Blinkist, the reading app based on the protocol the authors created, where three higher-level thinking domains of Bloom’s taxonomy (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001) were identified. Students were also asked to read/listen to the books every week. Even though the current findi...
CercleS survey: impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on foreign language teaching in Higher Education
Language Learning in Higher Education, 2021
The pandemic may well have totally changed the way foreign languages are now being taught. In Mar... more The pandemic may well have totally changed the way foreign languages are now being taught. In March 2020 language centres (LCs) in universities needed to adjust abruptly to online teaching with minimal resources or training for teachers. Research on the topic of the impact of the pandemic on teaching started from Day 1 and to date there have been contradictions about whether online learning is effective. The CercleS survey aims to study teachers’ reflections on teaching during the pandemic and on the future of foreign language instruction in Higher Education (HE). Data were collected between March 30 and May 5, 2021, and the answers reflect the voices of 725 teachers from CercleS national associations. The findings indicate that the teachers moved flexibly into the online mode of teaching despite limitations in technological resources and the absence of training: 32.4% of the respondents declared no hardware was provided by their institution for working from home and 40.6% were not ...
University Students and Their Ability to Perform Self-Regulated Online Learning Under the COVID-19 Pandemic
Frontiers in Psychology
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all aspects of the educational system, including students’ lea... more The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all aspects of the educational system, including students’ learning styles, which are heavily dependent on self-regulated studying strategies and motivation. The purpose of this study was to discover whether Central European students, in this case the Slovak and Czech students, were able to perform self-regulated learning during online learning under the COVID-19 pandemic to achieve their learning goals and improve academic performance, as well as to propose a few practical recommendations how to develop and maintain students’ self-regulation learning in this new online environment. The methodology was based on a questionnaire survey conducted among 268 students at two Central European universities in February and March 2021. The findings indicate that Central European students seemed to be able to perform their online self-study, especially in regard to personal competencies, meaningfulness and motivation. They reported higher awareness of their s...
Education Sciences
Reading is a fundamental skill for academic success because university students need to comprehen... more Reading is a fundamental skill for academic success because university students need to comprehend an extensive amount of information in a short time to achieve their academic goals. However, the influx of new technologies into education has challenged the teaching of reading skills in a foreign language. The purpose of this study was to explore the effect of emerging technologies, especially mobile applications, on second language reading comprehension in the period between 1 January and 30 September 2020. Therefore, the authors of this article conducted a search of available studies on the topic, i.e., the use of mobile applications in developing reading comprehension in second language acquisition, in two databases: Web of Science and Scopus. Despite the methodological differences, the findings of all of the identified studies showed that there was an improvement in reading comprehension after the treatment with mobile applications. In addition, a positive attitude and enhanced l...
University Students and Their Ability to Perform Self-Regulated Online Learning Under the COVID-19 Pandemic
Frontiers in Psychology, 2022
Emerging Science Journal
Objective: The objectives of the study are to identify and categorize non-native students´ errors... more Objective: The objectives of the study are to identify and categorize non-native students´ errors in the written summaries, to see which research instruments – the mobile reading app (experimental group) or internet-based article (control group) are more effective, and to determine if language proficiency of students will improve. Methods: This study uses an analysis of linguistic-stylistic errors as a research method on the written performance of 29 EFL Slovak students in 29 written summaries. Findings: The findings indicate that the most problematic areas in writing summaries were grammatical (determiners), followed by stylistic (text coherence, slang words, and punctuation), lexical (word collocations), and lexico-stylistic errors (prepositions). Overall, students´ proficiency in both groups rose from B2 to C1 level by 38% of the students (11 students). Therefore, both methods – the reading app and internet-based articles are effective. Novelty: The novelty of the study consists ...
Education Sciences, 2020
Reading is a fundamental skill for academic success because university students need to comprehen... more Reading is a fundamental skill for academic success because university students need to comprehend an extensive amount of information in a short time to achieve their academic goals. However, the influx of new technologies into education has challenged the teaching of reading skills in a foreign language. The purpose of this study was to explore the effect of emerging technologies, especially mobile applications, on second language reading comprehension in the period between 1 January and 30 September 2020. Therefore, the authors of this article conducted a search of available studies on the topic, i.e., the use of mobile applications in developing reading comprehension in second language acquisition, in two databases: Web of Science and Scopus. Despite the methodological differences, the findings of all of the identified studies showed that there was an improvement in reading comprehension after the treatment with mobile applications. In addition, a positive attitude and enhanced learner motivation when using mobile apps was found in several studies. Overall, there is potential for developing research on MALL and reading comprehension for randomized control studies with larger populations and longer intervention periods.
Cudzie jazyky v premenách času X, 2020
Online reading requires a purposeful, critical, and flexible learner who is able to cope with cha... more Online reading requires a purposeful, critical, and flexible learner who is able to cope with challenges to navigate through these types of texts with new skills and strategies. Advancement in technologies brings new apps for digital natives to use outside of classroom. One of the examples for incorporating digital technologies to enhance English language skills is to use the Blinkist app which summarizes various books into 15-minute reads or audios. The research carried out in Business English classes in Year 1 at the University of Economics in Bratislava examines whether using the app have an impact on English language skills of learners, especially on their reading and listening. Key words online reading, text-based reading, effective online reader, the Blinkist app, research, challenges "Technology will not replace great teachers but technology in the hands of great teachers can be transformational" (George Couros)
R. Štefančík (eds.). Aktuálne pohľady na výskum cudzích jazykov a interkultúrnej komunikácie., 2019
Being a Learner-Centred (LC) Teacher of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) for 21 st century. Th... more Being a Learner-Centred (LC) Teacher of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) for 21 st century. The 21 st century has brought many political, economic, and technical changes. These changes are being transferred into education and, as a result, teachers of EFL are experiencing a transition from a teacher-centred approach to a learner-centred approach. This article first compares the learner-centred aproach with traditional views on teaching in the 21 st century. The author introduces the roles a learner-centred teacher of EFL takes on as well as provides the practical hints for LC teacher in an EFL classroom.
Fórum cudzích jazykov, politológie a medzinárodných vzťahov, 2019
Nowadays students have plenty of opportunities to learn independently, as there is an abundance o... more Nowadays students have plenty of opportunities to learn independently, as there is an abundance of information everywhere. However, this independence leads to questions about whether students learn efficiently as well as whether they are self-regulated in the process. These are some of the questions examined in this article. The author defines self-regulation, introduces the model of self-regulation, reviews research on the topic and concludes with practical implications of self-regulation in an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) university setting.
FORLANG Cudzie jazyky v akademickom prostredí., 2019
Students at universities come from high schools with different learning styles and are used to di... more Students at universities come from high schools with different learning styles and are used to different types of evaluations. Studying at the university level requires an independent and self-regulated learner. Many scholars throughout the world call for self-assessment as a method for developing a holistic learner. This article examines reasons for different types of assessment and how to provide learners with feedback built on reinforcement, confidence and boosting their strengths.
Jazykovedné, literárnovedné a didaktické kolokvium 28, 2015
This article offers suggestions for teaching English in mathematics classes in Slovakia based on ... more This article offers suggestions for teaching English in mathematics classes in Slovakia based on a study conducted in the United States. Research findings are linked to the CLIL method of teaching English in content area classes in Slovakia.
EDAMBA 2019 : International Scientific Conference for Doctoral Students and Post-Doctoral Scholars., 2020
There has been vibrant discussion regarding international assessment across the world in the last... more There has been vibrant discussion regarding international assessment across the world in the last few decades. However, there have been not the best results of the students in the Slovak Republic regarding tests from IEA organizations. Therefore, this article explores three main international educational evaluations -PIRLS, TIMSS and PISA-and examines why Slovakia is not that successful at this type of testing as well as speculates factors influencing educational test results applicable to the Slovak context.
Exploration of the first-year university students’ metacognitive awareness about reading strategies
There have been a vast number of studies on reading strategies from different angles performed at... more There have been a vast number of studies on reading strategies from different angles performed at various age levels. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has brought a challenge to students´ lives, especially at the university level where they have to struggle with reading many materials online and offline. Therefore, this study investigated the levels of three different strategies of metacognitive awareness: global reading strategy, problem-solving strategy, and support reading strategy among 192 Slovak freshmen university students in a Business English class during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings reveal that the students used problem-solving strategies the most, followed by global and support reading strategies the least. The results also indicate a difference between male and female students at individual levels of reading strategies. The study proposes a set of recommendations with an alliance of COVID-19 learning environment based on the results such as taking notes while readin...
Contemporary Educational Technology
The article presents the research of empirical mixed methods on the use of a modern mobile readin... more The article presents the research of empirical mixed methods on the use of a modern mobile reading app compared to traditional forms of teaching in English business classes in higher education in Slovakia. The research belongs to the theoretical frame of the mobile assisted language learning field that has generated an interest since the early 1990 thanks to the development of mobile technologies, their features, and their functions all over the world. The research sample consisted of 40 freshman students from the University of Economics in Bratislava who were equally divided into control and experimental groups. The experimental treatment lasted one semester and was based on analyzing books on a biweekly basis from Blinkist, the reading app based on the protocol the authors created, where three higher-level thinking domains of Bloom’s taxonomy (Anderson & Krathwohl, 2001) were identified. Students were also asked to read/listen to the books every week. Even though the current findi...
CercleS survey: impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on foreign language teaching in Higher Education
Language Learning in Higher Education, 2021
The pandemic may well have totally changed the way foreign languages are now being taught. In Mar... more The pandemic may well have totally changed the way foreign languages are now being taught. In March 2020 language centres (LCs) in universities needed to adjust abruptly to online teaching with minimal resources or training for teachers. Research on the topic of the impact of the pandemic on teaching started from Day 1 and to date there have been contradictions about whether online learning is effective. The CercleS survey aims to study teachers’ reflections on teaching during the pandemic and on the future of foreign language instruction in Higher Education (HE). Data were collected between March 30 and May 5, 2021, and the answers reflect the voices of 725 teachers from CercleS national associations. The findings indicate that the teachers moved flexibly into the online mode of teaching despite limitations in technological resources and the absence of training: 32.4% of the respondents declared no hardware was provided by their institution for working from home and 40.6% were not ...
University Students and Their Ability to Perform Self-Regulated Online Learning Under the COVID-19 Pandemic
Frontiers in Psychology
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all aspects of the educational system, including students’ lea... more The COVID-19 pandemic has affected all aspects of the educational system, including students’ learning styles, which are heavily dependent on self-regulated studying strategies and motivation. The purpose of this study was to discover whether Central European students, in this case the Slovak and Czech students, were able to perform self-regulated learning during online learning under the COVID-19 pandemic to achieve their learning goals and improve academic performance, as well as to propose a few practical recommendations how to develop and maintain students’ self-regulation learning in this new online environment. The methodology was based on a questionnaire survey conducted among 268 students at two Central European universities in February and March 2021. The findings indicate that Central European students seemed to be able to perform their online self-study, especially in regard to personal competencies, meaningfulness and motivation. They reported higher awareness of their s...
Education Sciences
Reading is a fundamental skill for academic success because university students need to comprehen... more Reading is a fundamental skill for academic success because university students need to comprehend an extensive amount of information in a short time to achieve their academic goals. However, the influx of new technologies into education has challenged the teaching of reading skills in a foreign language. The purpose of this study was to explore the effect of emerging technologies, especially mobile applications, on second language reading comprehension in the period between 1 January and 30 September 2020. Therefore, the authors of this article conducted a search of available studies on the topic, i.e., the use of mobile applications in developing reading comprehension in second language acquisition, in two databases: Web of Science and Scopus. Despite the methodological differences, the findings of all of the identified studies showed that there was an improvement in reading comprehension after the treatment with mobile applications. In addition, a positive attitude and enhanced l...
University Students and Their Ability to Perform Self-Regulated Online Learning Under the COVID-19 Pandemic
Frontiers in Psychology, 2022
Emerging Science Journal
Objective: The objectives of the study are to identify and categorize non-native students´ errors... more Objective: The objectives of the study are to identify and categorize non-native students´ errors in the written summaries, to see which research instruments – the mobile reading app (experimental group) or internet-based article (control group) are more effective, and to determine if language proficiency of students will improve. Methods: This study uses an analysis of linguistic-stylistic errors as a research method on the written performance of 29 EFL Slovak students in 29 written summaries. Findings: The findings indicate that the most problematic areas in writing summaries were grammatical (determiners), followed by stylistic (text coherence, slang words, and punctuation), lexical (word collocations), and lexico-stylistic errors (prepositions). Overall, students´ proficiency in both groups rose from B2 to C1 level by 38% of the students (11 students). Therefore, both methods – the reading app and internet-based articles are effective. Novelty: The novelty of the study consists ...
Education Sciences, 2020
Reading is a fundamental skill for academic success because university students need to comprehen... more Reading is a fundamental skill for academic success because university students need to comprehend an extensive amount of information in a short time to achieve their academic goals. However, the influx of new technologies into education has challenged the teaching of reading skills in a foreign language. The purpose of this study was to explore the effect of emerging technologies, especially mobile applications, on second language reading comprehension in the period between 1 January and 30 September 2020. Therefore, the authors of this article conducted a search of available studies on the topic, i.e., the use of mobile applications in developing reading comprehension in second language acquisition, in two databases: Web of Science and Scopus. Despite the methodological differences, the findings of all of the identified studies showed that there was an improvement in reading comprehension after the treatment with mobile applications. In addition, a positive attitude and enhanced learner motivation when using mobile apps was found in several studies. Overall, there is potential for developing research on MALL and reading comprehension for randomized control studies with larger populations and longer intervention periods.
Cudzie jazyky v premenách času X, 2020
Online reading requires a purposeful, critical, and flexible learner who is able to cope with cha... more Online reading requires a purposeful, critical, and flexible learner who is able to cope with challenges to navigate through these types of texts with new skills and strategies. Advancement in technologies brings new apps for digital natives to use outside of classroom. One of the examples for incorporating digital technologies to enhance English language skills is to use the Blinkist app which summarizes various books into 15-minute reads or audios. The research carried out in Business English classes in Year 1 at the University of Economics in Bratislava examines whether using the app have an impact on English language skills of learners, especially on their reading and listening. Key words online reading, text-based reading, effective online reader, the Blinkist app, research, challenges "Technology will not replace great teachers but technology in the hands of great teachers can be transformational" (George Couros)
R. Štefančík (eds.). Aktuálne pohľady na výskum cudzích jazykov a interkultúrnej komunikácie., 2019
Being a Learner-Centred (LC) Teacher of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) for 21 st century. Th... more Being a Learner-Centred (LC) Teacher of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) for 21 st century. The 21 st century has brought many political, economic, and technical changes. These changes are being transferred into education and, as a result, teachers of EFL are experiencing a transition from a teacher-centred approach to a learner-centred approach. This article first compares the learner-centred aproach with traditional views on teaching in the 21 st century. The author introduces the roles a learner-centred teacher of EFL takes on as well as provides the practical hints for LC teacher in an EFL classroom.
Fórum cudzích jazykov, politológie a medzinárodných vzťahov, 2019
Nowadays students have plenty of opportunities to learn independently, as there is an abundance o... more Nowadays students have plenty of opportunities to learn independently, as there is an abundance of information everywhere. However, this independence leads to questions about whether students learn efficiently as well as whether they are self-regulated in the process. These are some of the questions examined in this article. The author defines self-regulation, introduces the model of self-regulation, reviews research on the topic and concludes with practical implications of self-regulation in an English as a Foreign Language (EFL) university setting.
FORLANG Cudzie jazyky v akademickom prostredí., 2019
Students at universities come from high schools with different learning styles and are used to di... more Students at universities come from high schools with different learning styles and are used to different types of evaluations. Studying at the university level requires an independent and self-regulated learner. Many scholars throughout the world call for self-assessment as a method for developing a holistic learner. This article examines reasons for different types of assessment and how to provide learners with feedback built on reinforcement, confidence and boosting their strengths.
Jazykovedné, literárnovedné a didaktické kolokvium 28, 2015
This article offers suggestions for teaching English in mathematics classes in Slovakia based on ... more This article offers suggestions for teaching English in mathematics classes in Slovakia based on a study conducted in the United States. Research findings are linked to the CLIL method of teaching English in content area classes in Slovakia.
EDAMBA 2019 : International Scientific Conference for Doctoral Students and Post-Doctoral Scholars., 2020
There has been vibrant discussion regarding international assessment across the world in the last... more There has been vibrant discussion regarding international assessment across the world in the last few decades. However, there have been not the best results of the students in the Slovak Republic regarding tests from IEA organizations. Therefore, this article explores three main international educational evaluations -PIRLS, TIMSS and PISA-and examines why Slovakia is not that successful at this type of testing as well as speculates factors influencing educational test results applicable to the Slovak context.