Effect of Offline Newly-Developed Task Cycle (NDTC) on Iranian Medical Students’ Reading Comprehension Performance

This study was conducted to explore the impact of integrating an evaluation cycle (Newly-developed Task Cycle) into Willis's task-based model on the improvement of Iranian medical students’ reading comprehension. In this quasi-treatment study, 60 medical students were selected through convenience sampling from Jahrom University of Medical Sciences, Jahrom, Iran, and assigned to two groups of Willis and NDTC. The control group (Willis group) received the procedures of the task-based cycle proposed by Willis, and the treatment group (NTDC group) received the procedures of NDTC designed by the researchers of this study. Each group participated in 12 sessions with a focus on reading comprehension, which met twice a week for 90 minutes. Prior to starting the treatment, a pre-test was administered. Also, one week after the last session, a post-test was administered. The post-test scores were compared with pre-test scores in each group and finally with each other. The results obtained from the statistical analysis of the collected data revealed that while both frameworks were effective in improving the learners’ reading skills, NDTC had a greater impact in this respect. The findings of the study have beneficial implications for teachers, researchers, and educational managers, should NDTC be infiltrated into teaching methods.