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Abstract

Based on a sociocultural theory and a plethora of experiential studies on the efficacy of scaffolding on foreign language learning, the goal of this research article is to examine the effectiveness of diverse types of scaffolding on university students’ lexical digesting and reading perception from a sociocultural standpoint. Using the Harvard Placement Test, 40 EFL students from a total of 70 were selected and divided into two experimental groups and a single control group. The first group (G1 Exp.) was given teaching with instructor scaffolding, the second group (G2 Exp.) received instruction with peer scaffolding, and the control group (G3 Cont.) received conventional instruction without any external enhancement. Pretests for lexical digesting and reading perception were administered to the three groups. Following the treatment, post-tests for lexical digesting and reading perception were administered. Descriptive statistics and inferential statistics were used to examine the collected data. The results showed a significant difference between instructor and peer scaffolding, with the peer scaffolding group outperforming the instructor scaffolding group. Both experimental groups outperformed the control group in lexical digesting and reading perception. Regarding various kinds of scaffolding, this study provided some advice for psycholinguists, curriculum designers, and language instructors.

Keywords

instructor-enhancement peer-assistance lexical digesting reading perception

Introduction

The sociocultural theoretical framework (SCTF), which Vygotsky put forth in 1978, has a significant impact on the socio-educational sector. Vygotsky thinks that sociocultural variables are equally important in the evolution of one’s mental operations, even though Vygotsky does not dispute the crucial functions of innate factors in the emergence of elementary operations. The socio-cultural theory approaches learning holistically. According to SCTF, meaning should be the primary emphasis of all instruction, and skills or information should be taught in all of their complex manifestations rather than as discrete, isolated ideas. Students are taught to actively create meaning and solve problems during the learning process (Brighton, 2013; J. Lantolf & Poehner, 2014).

The theory also emphasizes the dynamic relationships between instructors, students, and tasks and supports the idea that learning results through interpersonal interactions. Every learner has two zones: one of real growth and another of approximate progress. A learner’s mental processes that have been formed as a result of already completed developmental cycles determine the zone of actual development. The Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) is described by Vygotsky (1978) as the difference between the level of potential progress as defined via problem-solving under adult counseling or in co-partnership with more competent peers and the level of actual progress as defined by autonomous problem-solving (M. A. Abdulaal et al., 2023; Brighton, 2013; Haghparast & Mall-Amiri, 2015; J. Lantolf & Poehner, 2014; McCafferty, 2016; Teemant, 2018; Yongqi, 2003).

According to SCTF, learning doesn’t take place in a vacuum; it is impacted by meaningful social interactions in context. A youngster learns alongside an adult or a more experienced classmate, and language digesting takes place in the learner’s zone of proximal progress (Abdulaal et al., 2022b, Jafari, 2019; Jamali Kivi et al., 2022; J. Lantolf & Poehner, 2014; Teemant, 2018).

Reading continues to be given more weight in second language (L2) contexts. L2 reading proficiency, particularly with English as a foreign language, is already in great demand. To fulfill their personal, professional, and occupational goals, many people in multilingual settings need to read in a second language (L2) with a fair amount of proficiency (Zhu, 2021). Reading is regarded as one of the most beneficial necessary talents for daily life. Most of the time, people read to learn more about a particular topic. Zhu argues further that reading can be done for a variety of reasons, including learning facts, exchanging ideas, having fun, or expressing one’s emotions. As a result, reading is how most people learn new things or develop new ideas. Given the significance of reading, it should come as no surprise that reading experts and teachers have long been deeply interested in helping English language learners understand reading comprehension texts (M. A. Abdulaal, 2021; McKoon & Ratcliff, 2012; Woolley, 2011).

Lexical digesting can be made easier by having good reading skills. A crucial component of language and communication that is essential to learning and using a language is vocabulary knowledge. The first step in learning a language provides fundamental access to the language. However, language users struggle to utilize methods well. Speaking, writing, and reading in a foreign language all heavily depend on how many words one knows. It would appear that educators must take into account teaching language learners meaningful vocabulary. The more lexical items the learners know, the better they may be able to perceive what they read, and as a result, the more effectively they may write (Masrai et al., 2021).

Although lexical digesting might seem like a facile stage in acquiring a language, it is actually one of the most difficult tasks. Foreign language learners who have little exposure to the language and little chance to apply newly acquired vocabulary in real-world situations face even greater difficulties. Learning new words is essential for understanding what is read or heard as well as for communicating successfully with others (Zakian et al., 2022).

One of the main methods for incidental lexical digesting is learning through reading. Reading and vocabulary development are linked, and vocabulary mental growth is a cause and an effect of reading proficiency. Therefore, reading is frequently regarded as a great way to expand one’s knowledge. Reading has one major benefit of spoken language. Although oral language exposure is important, reading comprehension is typically the main method for acquiring new lexical items because written language typically contains a higher proportion of challenging or uncommon words (M. A. A. D. Abdulaal et al., 2022a; Akramy et al., 2022).

According to Ebadi et al. (2022), instruction can be successful in giving students a toolkit of tactics that will help them monitor their comprehension and increase their lexical items. For students to become motivated users of strategic strategy, training or teaching must be carefully planned and organized. According to some researchers (such as Akramy et al., 2022), teachers must create efficient instructional methods for introducing reading comprehension and strategies to students in order to satisfy their reading desires in the 21st century.

In the SCTF generally and the Zone Proximal Development (ZPD) specifically, scaffolding happens during contact. This is based on the theory’s thorough consideration that interactivity, or more particularly the discourse of the theory, is where the development also happens. The research was conducted by Chang and Yang (2023) to assess the value of the dialogue as it was realized through scaffolding in the zone of proximal development. They came to the conclusion that scaffolding is, first of all, a moving process. According to some researchers, interaction in the ZPD requires both a specialist and a beginner; it is claimed that teachers frequently provide planned instructional enhancement (Al Ibrahim et al., 2023). Teachers attempt to engage their learners in interactive learning in exceedingly small groups based on Vygotsky’s sociocultural theoretical approach, which states that all learning results from social interaction (Derry, 2013).

Likewise, peer or instructor scaffolding creates a supportive atmosphere while promoting learner independence (Homayouni, 2022), and is regarded as a really helpful method for enhancing the learning process. Teachers use the instructional strategy of scaffolding to give students contexts that are easier for them to comprehend. Scaffolding enables people to complete a task that they are unable to complete alone (Khojasteh et al., 2021). EFL students need a support system in their classes that gives them chances to practice speaking and listening in real-world situations. Students are supported through a process called scaffolding until they are able to use new techniques and abilities on their own.

Reading, as a social interactive endeavor, and communication are essential skills for language proficiency, and having a wide breadth and depth of vocabulary knowledge will aid learners to understand and express themselves in the target language. Lexical building and reading comprehension are thought to be two of the most crucial abilities (Kim et al., 2022). However, many EFL learners are reluctant to actually read the passages despite the efforts exerted by instructors and course designers to motivate the learners to do so. Additionally, a lot of EFL students struggle with understanding the words and information given in written English texts, and it can sometimes take a long time to read and comprehend an English text (Ebadi et al., 2022; Harraqi, 2017; Koda, 2005; Lantolf, 2000).

With a focus on reading issues, Kim et al. (2022) maintain that lack of suitable reading strategies, insufficient prior knowledge, and lack of favorable perceptions toward reading are the main issues EFL learners face when reading. Nevertheless, according to Kim et al. (2022), learners can surmount their challenges if they receive the right training. Similarly, Ajideh et al. (2012) contend that readers of foreign languages will struggle with perception if they are not given influential reading instruction or helpful reading resources. They go on to say that teaching reading strategies and fostering autonomous readers who can really access all types of materials by themselves is the most beneficial service teachers can offer to their EFL learners (M. A. Abdulaal & Abuslema, 2020).

Furthermore, according to Mckee (2012) and Kim et al. (2022), students opt to engage in more active learning. They think that students are open to asking questions to be addressed by their instructor or their peers because, in the absence of doing so, they will have no interest, which has a direct bearing on their perception. Readers do not read unless they can understand, which necessitates motivation even though perception is acknowledged as a time-wasting and challenging skill to acquire (Samiei & Ebadi, 2021). As a result, one may consider issues like the types of reading texts instructors use in the class, the manner in which they develop reading objectives for the passages, as well as the manner in which they motivate learners to study the texts.

According to Vygotskian sociocultural theory, a set of learners was guided during the scaffolding operation to create their initial academic writings in English. All researchers made an effort to impart the principles of scaffolding, such as giving models, contextualizing, open negotiations, creating probability, and handover within the ZPD, to the students in order to help them develop ideas, organize, draft, and revise their essays. At the 0.05 level, their results showed that the experimental group beat the control group. The experts came to the conclusion that scaffolding could significantly enhance university students’ writing abilities (Elleman et al., 2009; Namaziandost et al., 2019).

Samiei and Ebadi (2021) observed that EFL students seek out a method or technique to make the job of understanding a written passage easier. To attain this goal, the researchers chose to use scaffolding techniques to aid the trainees in developing their vocabulary digesting and reading perception skills. To the best of the researcher’s knowledge, however, extraordinarily little research has been done to compare the efficacy of question generating and answering in order to determine which approach is preferable for enhancing the reading comprehension of EFL learners. This is despite the fact that there are many scaffolding strategies in this field.

Additionally, it’s important to look into how different peer and teacher scaffolds, like warm-up exercises, scanning, and L1 translation, affect EFL students’ growth of reading comprehension and accidental lexical digesting. In light of the aforementioned problems, the objective of this research is to compare the impacts of instructor and peer scaffolding on the lexical digesting and reading perception of EFL students from a sociocultural viewpoint. Two research questions were created as a result:

RQ1: Does implementing instructor and peer scaffolding have appreciable impacts on incidental lexical digesting among Saudi pre-intermediate EFL learners?

RQ2: Does the use of instructor and peer scaffolding affect Saudi pre-intermediate EFL students’ reading comprehension in any appreciable way?

Review of Literature

Scaffolding is an essential sociocultural terminology. According to SCTF, learning occurs when people engage with each other in social, cultural, and historical contexts (Campo et al., 2021). Nguyen and Williams (2016) define scaffolding as the support provided by an instructor to a student while conducting a task that the learner may not otherwise be able to complete. According to Campo et al. (2016), scaffolding is the assistance of an adult or expert that allows a person or novice to complete a task, solve a problem, or reach a goal that would be beyond his or her own abilities. It is claimed that instructional scaffolds encourage the development of reading comprehension abilities. Additionally, it is asserted that scaffolding techniques give readers a wider view of the reading materials to enhance comprehension (Jamali Kivi et al., 2022; Vuong, 2016).

The function of scaffolding in the teaching and learning of languages has been the subject of numerous studies. Berenji (2021) and Ding et al. (2023) looked into the impact of enhancement on EFL students’ vocabulary knowledge in research. They wanted to know if scaffolding had an impact on EFL learners. Twenty-six EFL students from a private institute participated in this research and were divided randomly into an experimental group and a control group. The study’s experimental research methodology included pre- and post-tests as well as a control group. The findings of the ANCOVA test showed that prior oral lexical knowledge in English was a strong predictor of students’ success in the vocabulary-enhancing intervention and that scaffolding was effective in helping students acquire vocabulary.

Mohammadzadeh et al. (2020) conducted different research to investigate the impact of symmetric scaffolding on upper-mediate learners’ reading perception. Twenty intermediate EFL students took part in this investigation. The sample consisted of males and females with an average age of 18. To ascertain the participants’ previous knowledge, a pre-test was given before the experiment began. A post-test was given to participants at the conclusion of the research to gauge how well the treatment had worked. A T-test was used to evaluate the data that had been gathered. The results showed that symmetrical framing significantly improved the reading comprehension abilities of EFL students.

Sarmiento-Campos et al. (2022) looked into how instructor scaffolding affected EFL students’ listening comprehension. In order to achieve this, two sets of 64 upper-mediate EFL learners—32 males and 32 females—who are enrolled in an English language program were chosen. Scaffolding methods were used in all of their lessons. The outcomes supported the findings that instructor scaffolding significantly improved both groups’ listening performance. Additionally, there was no correlation between gender and instructor scaffolding success in listening when gender was taken into account.

Research by Li (2022) and Recamara (2022) examined how much two scaffolding strategies—the symmetric and asymmetric—contribute to acquiring grammar by EFL university learners. 67 female university students between the ages of 18 and 23 were chosen by convenience sampling to represent the study’s population. The required data was gathered using a couple of research tools: a grammar exam, and a series of activities. They were divided into two study groups: symmetric and asymmetric scaffolding after taking a pretest. As opposed to the symmetric scaffolding group, which got instruction using the symmetric strategy, the asymmetric scaffolding group did so. An independent T-test and a paired T-test were employed to evaluate the collected data after the study’s post-test and data analysis. The results showed that asymmetric scaffolding was a more successful approach in raising the syntactic proficiency of EFL learners.

The effect of different types of scaffolding on the development of language skills and subskills did not get the focus it deserved, according to a review of the literature to date (Dan, 2021). Rare investigations in this area have also been conducted in the Saudi context. This research was conducted in order to compare the impacts of instructor versus peer scaffolding on lexical digesting and reading perception of EFL students from a sociocultural perspective (M. A. Abdulaal et al., 2022d; Singhal, 2001).

Methodology

Participants

The Harvard Placement Test was used to select 40 of the 70 EFL students studying English at the College of Science and Humanities for this research. The participants in this research were considered to be samples if their scores are one (SD) above or below the mathematical mean. The chosen subjects, who ranged in age from 15 to 18, were upper-intermediate speakers (16 males and 34 females). Two experimental groups (G1 Exp. and G2 Exp.) and one control group (G3 Cont.) were formed from the trainees. G3 Cont. did not receive scaffolding while G1 Exp. got teacher-scaffolding techniques, and G2 Exp. received peer-scaffolding techniques.

Instruments

Harvard Placement Test (HPT)

The HPT is a quick method to gauge how well-versed in grammar, vocabulary, and reading participants are in English. The test will take 45 min to finish. There are two parts to this exam, each with 40 multiple-choice questions and cloze tests. There are 14 problems in the first section and 26 in the second. Reading the items and choosing the right response from the options is required of the participants. No points are deducted for wrong responses. This exam has a total score of 100. More than 2,000 students from 26 different countries used HPT to validate it, and its reliability has been rated 0.80.

Lexical Digesting and English Vocabulary Test (EVT)

The pre- and post-tests, designed to gauge the subjects’ vocabulary proficiency, were given out by an instructor and were in the form of an English vocabulary test. With different questions in each section, this multiple-choice exam served as both the pretest and the posttest. Each accurate response earned one point on the 40-question exam. The exam had a possible range of scores from 0 to 40. The terms were chosen in accordance with the learners’ textbook, New Interchange 4 (version 5).

Three EFL teachers with 15 years of experience teaching English at universities were asked to participate in the test development to ensure the validity of the researcher-made exam. They offered their opinions on the validity of its appearance and substance. The test’s structures and objects were changed. On a comparable sample of students from different educational settings, the researcher-made vocabulary test was used as a pilot test. The Kuder-Richardson algorithm was used to determine the test’s reliability. High reliability was evident in the score (R = 0.82).

Reading Comprehension Test (RCT)

The pre-test and post-test were given to learners to gauge their academic progress in reading comprehension before and after the instruction period. The reading passages included the following subjects: the oldest woman, sleeplessness, memory enhancement, and language learning. There were 30 multiple-choice questions in the test. Taking into account the student’s level of competency, the readings were chosen. For the pilot study, 34 EFL students were chosen to take part. Cronbach’s Alpha formula was used to determine the reliability of the reading comprehension exam, and the result was .83. The experts who verified the vocabulary exam also endorsed the validity of the reading perception exam. Item qualities, such as items of facility and discrimination, were also researched in order to provide the best exam possible. 20 min were allotted, as was decided during the piloting phase.

Data Collection Procedures

The following actions were conducted over the course of six sessions in order to accomplish the study’s goals. A pilot study was undertaken to assess the validity of the reading and lexical assessments prior to the basic study. The study’s protocol was explained to the participants.

Through the administration of an HPT to 70 EFL students studying English at Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz, 40 participants were chosen as the study’s sample and divided into three groups: G1 Exp., the teacher-scaffolding experimental group (14 participants); G2 Exp., the peer-scaffolding experimental group (13 participants); and G3 Cont., a control group with no scaffolding (13 participants). After the pretests, all three groups received the vocabulary and reading comprehension tests.

The members of Group 1 (G1 Exp.) were given enough time to read the guidelines of the questions. Furthermore, students used a monolingual dictionary to confirm the meaning and proper pronunciation of new words. When students in this group had trouble understanding the text, the teacher kept an eye on them.

Participants in the second group (G2 Exp.) were separated into four-student groups, with one learner in each group serving as the coordinator to assist other students in understanding various textual elements. Each student was given the task of expressing the text’s primary theme as well as checking the semantic content of the new words and correcting the mispronunciations.

The control group, G3 Cont., was given the deciding texts through the conventional approach, without any kind of assistance from an instructor or peer. That’s to say, the passages were provided to the subjects, but neither the instructor nor the students were able to assist the learner in deciphering the text’s primary theme or the definition of the unfamiliar vocabulary. The lexical and reading perception exams served as the posttests and were given at the end of the treatment.

Results

Research Question No. 1

The first study question examined the effect of instructor and mate scaffolding on vocabulary digesting among Saudi EFL learners. Thus, the findings of the vocabulary pre- and post-tests were compared. The data were initially examined for normality using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, and the results are shown in Table 1. The normality test is employed to determine whether data collected has been taken from a normally distributed population; the normality test is sometimes called the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test.

Table 1.

Normality Test.

GroupsKolmogorov-Smirnov^a	Statistics	df	Sig.
G1: Instructor-scaffold	.192	14	.380
G2: Peer-scaffold	.181	13	.300*
G3: Control group	.154	13	.300*

^aLilliefors significance correction.

This is a lower bound of the true significance.

The data collected are normally distributed for the two experimental groups (G1 Exp. and G2 Exp.) and the control group (G3 Cont.) according to the findings of the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test for normality (p > .05). The data is normally distributed if the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test’s Sig. value is larger than .05. In this sense, the null hypothesis was approved. The means of the three groups are therefore compared using a one-way ANOVA. The one-way ANOVA findings for the lexical digesting pre-test scores are displayed in Table 2. ANOVA (i.e., Analysis of Variance) is a test employed to determine differences between research results from more than two unrelated samples.

Table 2.

One-Way ANOVA.

	Sum of squares	Df	Mean square	F	Sig.
Between groups	5.346	2	1.746	.418	.195
Within groups	162.621	56	2.653
Total	167.967	58

Table 2 shows that there was no apparent significant difference in vocabulary learning performance between the control, teacher-scaffolding, and peer-scaffolding groups prior to the treatment (p = .195 > .05). The Kolmogorov-Smirnov normality test is shown in Table 3 to verify the normality of the vocabulary post-test results.

Table 3.

Normality Test for Lexical Digesting Posttest.

GroupsKolmogorov-Smirnov^a	Statistic	df	Sig.
Instructor-scaffolding	.235	14	.093
Peer-scaffolding	.198	13	.300*
Control group	.169	13	.300*

Lilliefors significance correction.

This is a lower bound of the true significance.

The data collected are normally distributed for the two experimental groups and for the single control group, according to the findings of the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test based on Table 3 (p > .05). Therefore, the null hypothesis (H₀) for the overall results was accepted. The means of the three groups were therefore compared using a one-way ANOVA. The one-way ANOVA findings for the lexical digesting post-test scores are fully displayed in Table 4.

Table 4.

Parametric One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) for Vocabulary Digesting Posttest.

	Squares sum	df	Mean square	f	Sig.
Between groups	4.430	3	1.918	.731	.000
Within groups	162.500	56	3.947
Total	166.930	58

The observed performance of the instructor-scaffolding, peer-enhancement, and control groups in vocabulary digesting following the treatment is shown in Table 6 (p = .000 > .05). The null hypothesis (H0) was therefore disproved. Table 5 represents Tukey HSD and records the variations in post-test scores between groups.

Table 5.

Tridimensional Comparison for Lexical Digesting Post-Tests.

(A) Groups	(B) Groups	Mean difference	Std. error	Sig.	95% Confidence interval
(A) Groups	(B) Groups	Mean difference	Std. error	Sig.	Lower bound	Upper bound
Teacher-scaffold	Peer-scaffold	−1.460*	0.110	0.032	0.395	4.101
	Control	1.880*	0.110	0.023	0.816	2.220
Peer-scaffold	Teacher-scaffold	1.460*	0.110	0.032	−4.101	−0.395
	Control	4.310*	0.110	0.003	−1.920	1.990
Control Group	Teacher-scaffold	−1.880*	0.110	0.023	−2.220	−0.816
	Peer-scaffold	−4.310*	0.110	0.003	−1.990	1.920

The mean difference (significant at 0.05).

Table 6.

Parametric One-Way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) for Reading Perception Pre-Test.

	Squares sum	df	Mean square	F	Sig.
Between groups	4.805	2	1.628	.496	.385
Within groups	153.103	56	2.784
Total	158.908	58

Table 7 also displays the variations between the three groups. According to this table, peer scaffolding greatly outperformed the control and teacher scaffolding groups. In addition, there is a big difference in terms of performance between the participants in the control group and those in the teacher scaffolding group.

Table 7.

Parametric One-Way ANOVA for Reading Perception Post-Test.

	Sum of square	df	Mean square	F	Sig.
Between groups	3.610	2	1.567	.596	.002
Within groups	153.338	56	4.298
Total	156.948	58

Research Question No. 2

The primary goal of the second research question was to evaluate the impact of instructor and peer scaffolding on the reading comprehension of EFL learners. The results of the participants’ reading pre-, and post-tests were compared in this regard. Reading perception pre- and post-test scores have a normal distribution, according to the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test, which was used to determine whether the data distribution was normal (p > .05). The one-way ANOVA test was therefore administered. The findings of the one-way ANOVA for the reading perception pretest scores of the three groups are displayed in Table 6.

Table 6 below shows the significant difference (p = .385 > .05) in the reading comprehension performance of the control, peer, and teacher-scaffolding groups prior to the treatment procedure. The findings of the one-way ANOVA for the reading post-test scores are displayed in Table 7.

The findings of Table 7 below demonstrate a substantial difference in reading ability between the instructor-scaffolding, peer-scaffolding, and control groups following the treatment (p = .002 < .05). Table 8 represents the Tukey HSD and records the variations in post-test scores between groups.

Table 8.

Tridimensional Comparisons for Reading Perception Post-Test Scores.

(A) Groups	(B) Groups	Mean difference	Std. error	Sig.	95% Confidence interval
(A) Groups	(B) Groups	Mean difference	Std. error	Sig.	Lower bound	Upper bound
Teacher-scaffolding	Peer-scaffold	−1.810*	0.180	.039	0.387	2.992
	Control	1.610*	0.180	.011	0.651	3.450
Peer-scaffolding	Teacher-scaffold	1.810*	0.180	.039	−2.992	−0.387
	Control	3.900*	0.180	.002	−1.356	1.899
Control group	Teacher-scaffold	−1.610*	0.180	.011	−3.450	−0.651
	Peer-scaffold	−3.900*	0.180	.002	−1.899	1.356

The mean difference is significant at the .05 level.

The variations between the three groups are shown in Table 8 below. In terms of reading perception skills, there was a substantial difference between the three groups. The results demonstrated that peer scaffolding performed much better than both instructor scaffolding and control groups. Moreover, there was a big difference between the control group and the teacher scaffolding group.

Discussion

When it comes to EFL learners, it is more difficult because they have less exposure to the language and less chance to employ the words they have acquired in real-world situations. They thus struggle greatly with language use. The sheer quantity of studies looking for the best lexical digesting techniques demonstrates the importance of tactics in lexical learning. The major goal of the current research study was to investigate, from a sociocultural perspective, the impacts of instructor versus peer enhancement on lexical learning and reading perception in EFL learners. The answers reported in the previous section, to the first research question show that there is a substantial difference in vocabulary scores between the instructor-scaffolding, peer-scaffolding, and control groups. The outcomes of this research inquiry are consistent with earlier studies (Jafari, 2019; Jamali Kivi et al., 2022; Yongqi, 2003).

According to these results, comprehensive training that integrates language abilities and subskills enhances student vocabulary knowledge more than simple, definitional instruction that just teaches students the semantic content of a word. This finding is in line with the results from a meta-analysis of 39 research looking at how vocabulary affects understanding (Elleman et al., 2009; Namaziandost et al., 2019).

The findings of the second research question demonstrated that there was a highly significant difference among the three groups when taking into account the students’ reading comprehension scores, favoring the peer-scaffolding group. Haghparast and Mall-Amiri (2015) asserted that EFL students can support one another in the same way that instructors help the students by expanding the scaffolding framework. The answer to this study question is in line with earlier scholarly studies (M. A. Abdulaal et al., 2022c; Hamidi & Bagherzadeh, 2018; Harraqi, 2017).

Initial support is provided by instructional scaffolds, which are progressively eliminated as the student gets more independent. This occurrence takes place when the student’s internal speech happens automatically and unconsciously. The scaffolding method for teaching reading may aid students in developing into independent, self-regulatory, and problem-solving learners (Harraqi, 2017; Koda, 2005).

Scaffolding and ZPD can be useful, according to a study by Kumar et al. (2007), but if teachers don’t know how to use them properly, they run the risk of making students too passive and stunting their development. According to Vygotsky’s scaffolding theory and the ZPD, learning occurs most effectively when a student is in their ZPD. Social contacts are crucial for development from a child’s earliest years. Additionally, he asserted that prior to becoming an internal, mental ability, every higher mental faculty unquestionably goes through an outward social period of development. As a result, the function starts out as social, and internalization is the operation through which it transforms into an internal ability.

Furthermore, scaffolding education in the context of language perception research is effective in enhancing learners’ cognitive abilities. Using scaffolding builds linguistic momentum. Learning happens more quickly because students spend less time looking and more time learning thanks to the structure that scaffolding provides (Singhal, 2001).

A number of scaffolding behaviors have been proven to be effective in helping students learn vocabulary and improve reading comprehension so they can attain greater stages of independence, according to the sociocultural approach employed in the current study. This influence has been demonstrated by both the instructor and peers. Concerning their success on exams for vocabulary digesting and reading perception, the teacher’s and peer’s types of scaffolding actions varied.

Conclusion

When dealing with EFL students, it is more difficult because they have less exposure to the language and less chance to employ the words they have acquired in real-world situations. They thus struggle greatly with language use. The sheer quantity of studies looking for the best lexical digesting techniques demonstrates the importance of tactics in word learning (M. A. Abdulaal et al., 2023). As the current study concentrated on vocabulary digesting and reading perception of EFL students, the outcome may have been influenced by the students’ L1 habits. Programs for professional development or teacher education can benefit from the scaffolding intervention strategy. The intervention program offers a detailed paradigm for learning to scaffold, sometimes known as the contingent teaching model.

This study helps us better understand when low or high contingent assistance is advantageous. By teaching more scaffolders to successfully support themselves and their peers, the result shows how mate scaffolding can be used with low-level EFL learners. The approaches used in the lesson on scaffolding were practical. Students felt content participating as learners as a result. They were also open to participating in a peer-scaffolding program modality that was later determined to be appropriate and effective. Incorporating scaffolding instruction into language classrooms is thus feasible and hopeful, especially when learning or teaching language skills.

The results of this study suggest that social in addition to cooperative learning teaching methods be used frequently. It is more in favor of collaborative learning that necessitates the existence of a peer and offers students the chance to correct themselves while also learning the tactical procedures necessary for mastering challenging new skills. This enables EFL students to actively create their own learning environments. It’s also important to note that dialogic engagement within a sociocultural framework aids students in transitioning from dependence on others to self-independence.

Based on the findings of this research study, teachers are urged to employ scaffolding to teach vocabulary in a context enhanced by technology as a successful alternative to conventional instruction. Furthermore, it is advised that teacher educators help instructors understand the advantages of using scaffolding in a technologically enhanced environment for instruction. All academic institutions should abide by the rules established by their leadership. As a result, linguists and educators should be more receptive to novel approaches to lexical digesting.

Despite our best efforts, there are always going to be limitations in any research study. The main disadvantage of this study is the limited sample size, which consisted of only 40 Saudi EFL learners. As a result, caution should be used when extrapolating the results to other populations.

Footnotes

Data Availability Statement included at the end of the article.

Author Contributions

All authors had substantial contributions to the conception and design of the work. The interviews and the analysis were conducted by the first author. All authors participated in the interpretation of data. All authors drafted the work and revised it critically for important intellectual content. All authors gave final approval of the version to be published and agreed to be accountable for all aspects of the work in ensuring that questions related to the accuracy or integrity of any part of the work are appropriately investigated and resolved.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This study is supported via funding from Prince Sattam bin Abdulaziz University project number (PSAU/2024/R/1445).

ORCID iDs

Mohammad Awad Al-Dawoody Abdulaal

Naglaa Fathy Mohammad Atia Abuslema

Ethical Approval

The study protocol was reviewed by the University of Helsinki Ethical Review Board in the Humanities and Social and Behavioral Sciences. All research was performed in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki.

Informed Consent

Written consent has been taken from the participants for research purposes.

Data Availability Statement

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

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A Sociocultural Perspective on the Impact of Instructor Versus Peer Scaffolding Upon Lexical Digesting and Reading Perception

Abstract

Keywords

Introduction

Review of Literature

Methodology

Participants

Instruments

Harvard Placement Test (HPT)

Lexical Digesting and English Vocabulary Test (EVT)

Reading Comprehension Test (RCT)

Data Collection Procedures

Results

Research Question No. 1

Research Question No. 2

Discussion

Conclusion

Footnotes

Author Contributions

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

Funding

ORCID iDs

Ethical Approval

Informed Consent

Data Availability Statement

References