Improving ESP Students’ Reading Comprehension through E-Learning

Introduction: E-Learning is an umbrella term that describes learning done at a computer, usually connected to anytime, anywhere. It is an experience that leads to comprehension and mastery of new skills and knowledge. Electronic learning naturally a flexible learning which can be blended or distant, that is with orwithout direct face-to-face classroom instruction. The goal is to guide students through information taken from the net to perform successfully in a task. In this paper, there was an attempt to investigate the effect of electronic learning on Iranian ESP students’ reading comprehension. Method: For this purpose, a group of 60 male and female students majoring in nursing, midwifery, medicine at Semnan universities were selected. A reading comprehension test, the validity and reliability of which was proven to be high was administered as the pre-test. Then, 30 students are subjected to an electronic learning program. Here students read computerized ESP texts provided with comprehension aids (textual, pictures, sounds). The other 30 students, randomly, selected from the group, serve as a control group. Both theparticipants of e-learning and traditional classroom instruction received 16 sessions of instruction. Both groups will have pre and post test ESP reading comprehension. By comparing the results of the two groups, the effectiveness of electronic learning will be examined.Findings: The quantitative analysis of the data showed that e-learning had a significant effect on improving Iranian ESP students’ reading comprehension.