Effect of Alternative Reading Materials on the Communicative Competence of Freshmen

Abstract

This descriptive study aimed at finding out the effect of exposure to alternative reading materials on the communicative competence of college freshmen. Casual comparative method was employed in gathering the data for the alternative reading materials and a communicative competence test was administered to measure the effect of exposure to the materials. Samples of the study were 263 freshmen of four colleges of the University of Southeastern Philippines in its Obrero Campus. The objectives of the study were to find out the alternative reading materials college freshmen read, the features and content of those materials, the level of communicative competence of those who were more exposed less exposed to the reading materials, and to determine the significant difference in the level of communicative competence those readers. The researcher found out that the college freshmen read newspapers, magazines, journals, periodicals, pocketbooks, Bible, dictionary, comics, and pamphlets/booklets; on the average, college freshmen read the materials because of their content, language used, and layout. The three most interesting contents of the materials were adventure, fiction, and history;  the level of communicative competence of those who were more exposed to the alternative reading materials was above average while that of the less exposed was average. It was also found that there was a significant difference in the level of communicative competence between those who were more exposed and less exposed to alternative reading materials.