1 Introduction

English is of paramount significance for engineering and science students because it is regarded as the principal language of science and considered as a means of familiarizing the ESP students with professional and technical English texts. However, the picture in Iran is apparently different because despite spending many hours learning English at school and university, ESP students are merely limited to their instructors and textbooks and are almost devoid of authentic opportunities for improving their English [22, 64]. Also, ESP teachers might utilize outdated and teacher-centered teaching methods with an emphasis on memorization and grammar [2, 8, 49]. Thus, ESP students still have difficulties understanding the reading passages of these technical books. Rather, they need to be involved in performing various tasks and learn strategies so as to learn the language authentically and strategically [17, 28, 32]. In much the same vein, to improve the reading skills of the ESP students in the present study, we taught them reading comprehension strategies through an online hybrid reading intervention featuring cognitive and metacognitive reading strategies and to familiarize them with the technical texts of this field, we developed an ESP textbook due to a number of reasons.

First, an informal interview prior to the outset of the study revealed that the reading skill in their traditional book was a source of major difficulty to them because it did not meet the actual needs of these computer software engineering students. Second, these students had been used to employ simplified texts and underwent grammar-translation or audio-lingual methods prior to their entrance to this university, but were now exposed to difficult texts during their B.Sc. program with no specific teaching methods, but dull approaches, such as translating the lines, summarizing the paragraphs, and explaining the meanings of the technical words thereof. Third, the reading strategies they used while reading, such as using a dictionary and asking the teacher, were thought to be rather outdated, which is why they were reluctant toward learning how to read. Last, the ESP teachers have not found the traditional books useful since they contained texts which were complex and they did not have equal technical background.

Along this line, literature suggests that ESP textbooks are almost insufficiently developed and cannot meet the ESP students' technical learning needs due to a lack of incorporating effective tasks and activities [8, 43]. These tasks can be embedded in a well-designed textbook which has been an area of concern to the authors in the present study since textbook content is an important factor for language learning and must be based on the students' educational needs [39]. In this regard, the authors have compiled and written a book for the students of computer software engineering field at Mazandaran University of Science and Technology after consulting two experts in applied linguistics and subject-specific domains. The recently-published textbook is based on the specific technical needs of the computer software students and contains adequate and coherent four language skills activities that provide the ESP students with more opportunities to learn.

Notwithstanding, the choice of an online intervention was because online learning has turned into an efficient and flexible avenue for second and foreign language learning, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic [19]. Online learning enables the EFL learners to have an active role in their own language learning processes, thereby achieving agency. This, in turn, has transformed the regular face-to-face educational landscape into an online and digitalized learning platform [35]. Ergo, the purpose of the present experimental paper is twofold. First, it strives to examine the effect of an online hybrid reading intervention on the students' reading performance and strategy use. Second, the Iranian EFL teachers' and students' perceptions toward the four language skills activities of the newly-published researcher-developed needs-based ESP textbook are reported so as to receive feedback and improve its various sections for future editions. Accordingly, the study was conducted in two phases: phase one collected the participants' information in terms of their reading comprehension and reading strategy use and phase two recorded their opinions with regard to the newly published textbook [36]

2 Literature review

Reading comprehension, which is often associated with academic success, has been regarded as a complex and multifaceted skill that involves various cognitive processes and entails strategy use [56]. Goodman [24] viewed reading comprehension as a receptive rather than a passive skill, which entails perceptive language process. He defined reading comprehension as a ''psycholinguistic guessing game'' where the reader starts by decoding linguistic units in a text and ends with constructing meaning. Thus, there is an interaction between language and thought, in that, the reader decodes into thought what has been encoded as language by a writer.

In fact, Goodman [24] adopted a sociocognitive constructivist view of reading comprehension and maintained that reading comprehension involves cognitive processes, such as bottom-up (i.e., decoding or linguistic comprehension), top-down (i.e., schema-based comprehension), and interactive processes (i.e., interaction between bottom-up and top-down processes). This view is backed by eye-movement studies [25], revealing that while skilled readers attempt to make sense of a text, they go back and forth between letter-by-letter or word-by-word perceptions (as proposed by bottom-up advocators) and relating the new information in the text with the old information, prior knowledge, or schemata (as advocated by top-down proponents). Thus, the linguistic-based and the knowledge-based processing need to work interactively and simultaneously to guarantee thorough reading comprehension. In other words, the skilled readers go back and forth from the lowest linguistic level to the highest in cyclical movement rather than a serial one. Therefore, according to Goodman's model, the key concept in reading comprehension is the construction of meaning. To make sense of a text, we need to construct meaning by recognizing linguistic units, activating prior knowledge, inferring from the text, and making meaning [23]. To ease this process, Al-Behairi [1] points to five important cognitive reading strategies, namely inferring (e.g., drawing conclusions, making predictions, and guessing the meanings), visualizing (e.g., forming mental images), synthesizing (e.g., bringing together and making connections between different ideas), questioning (e.g., asking questions, identifying details, and guessing the answers), and determining importance (e.g., learning new information and deciding what is important).

Aside from the cognitive processes involved, Goodman [25] also referred to the application of higher-order L1 reading strategies transferred to L2. A skillful L2 reader has the ability to use these strategies in order to regulate their L2 reading process, hence the need for higher-order thinking skills [57], which are also known as the metacognitive skills [14]. Therefore, reading comprehension, as the literature suggests, also occurs at the metacognitive level where the reader engages in planning, monitoring, and evaluating their reading process, thus adapting these metacognitive reading strategies to their reading goals. The significance of metacognitive knowledge is such that Van Gelderen et al. [57] concluded by referring to two prominent components with utmost contribution to successful L2 reading comprehension, namely metacognitive knowledge and vocabulary knowledge [65]. Thus, a skilled reader needs to be armed with metacognitive knowledge of reading strategies to regulate their reading process and arrive at their reading goals. Anderson [6] also believed that EFL learners are metacognitively aware since they are in possession of problem-solving skills and know what strategies to use to solve their reading comprehension problems. Therefore, it calls for more studies to examine the role of metacognition in the successful reading process [14].

Metacognition has been tersely defined by Flavell [20] as "thinking about thinking" and has been brought into second language learning and teaching by Wenden [61]. Metacognitively speaking, a reader needs to become aware of the gap between their current level of understanding and what the text demands. To fill this gap, they need to choose appropriate reading comprehension strategies (i.e., conditional knowledge) and know how to execute them (i.e., procedural knowledge). These strategies assist them with resolving the comprehension problems that they often encounter while reading [51]. In this regard, Anderson [6] divided the metacognitive reading strategies into five primary categories, namely preparing and planning, deciding on what reading strategies to use when, monitoring the reading strategy use, orchestrating various cognitive reading strategies, and finally evaluating the reading-strategy use. However, he held a kaleidoscopic view of metacognition containing all these five primary components and did not regard metacognition as one of them in isolation.

A large body of research points to the strong bond between higher levels of metacognitive knowledge and greater reading comprehension performance. This link ushered several researchers (e.g., [14, 57, 61]) into examining the effectiveness of various metacognitive interventions aimed at improving the literacy skills, including reading comprehension, and called for targeting different groups of participants and various reading contexts [14]. In this regard, explicit teaching before reciprocal teaching [27], online flipped instruction of metacognitive reading strategies [59], and schema strategy instruction using digital mind mapping [63] were reported to be effective in improving the reading comprehension, strategy use, self-efficacy, or self-regulated learning of low-achieving learners. However, examples of the cognitive reading strategies taught were merely summarization, posing questions, clarification, and prediction [27]. Notwithstanding, the only metacognitive strategies taught were self-regulated learning strategies, such as planning (e.g., previewing reading tasks and setting goals), monitoring (checking one's reading process), and evaluating (assessing the reading outcomes and effectiveness of reading strategies) [57].

For example, Wang [59] examined the effect of a 12-week (online) collaborative flipped reading intervention on the reading comprehension and self-regulated learning of 71 Chinese EFL learners. There were two experimental groups receiving the flipped instruction (n = 22) and online flipped instruction (n = 25), respectively, and one control group following the conventional instruction (n = 24). To assess the reading comprehension and self-regulated learning of the participants, IELTS reading tests and Self-Regulated Learning (SRL) strategy use questionnaire were used before and after the intervention. Results indicated the outperformance of both experimental groups compared with their control group peers in terms of the reading comprehension and self-regulated learning behaviors. Besides, the experimental group undergoing the online flipped instruction displayed superior online learning behaviors and objective performances compared to the experimental group receiving merely the flipped instruction.

Consequently, reading comprehension process is a complex cognitive activity, which necessitates several factors, such as prior knowledge activation; cognitive and metacognitive strategies; lexical, grammatical, and genre-related knowledge; strategic, organizational, adaptational, reflective, and evaluative skills; besides the reading type, reader's attitude, and many more [59, 61]. The complex nature of reading comprehension makes it difficult to measure. However, it is usually gauged through objective tests, which feature test formats, such as multiple-choice, true–false, gap-fill, matching, etc. [59]. In this regard, a frequently used objective reading test has been the IELTS Reading Test that has been regarded as a legitimate and psychometrically sound assessment method with high reliability and validity indices for measuring the reading comprehension in EFL and ESL contexts due simply to its capacity for large-scale administration [59,60,61].

In any event, ESP students have difficulties comprehending the reading passages of technical ESP books [19]. This is especially the case with science and engineering students, such as computer software engineering students. To assist them with better EFL reading comprehension, they need to be involved in performing various tasks and learn cognitive and metacognitive strategies in order to learn the language authentically and strategically. In this regard, although strategy instruction was generally thought of as an effective solution to assist engineering students with better EFL reading comprehension, there is a dearth of studies examining the effectiveness of an online hybrid reading intervention, featuring cognitive and metacognitive strategies, on the reading comprehension performance and strategy use of ESP computer students in an EFL context, such as Iran. Thus, it calls for more empirical research to add more evidence to this line of research.

Along these lines, many researchers (e.g., [15, 22, 30, 33, 36, 37, 42]) have been evaluating the efficacy of various English textbooks and their different aspects to provide the right materials for students so as to meet their learning needs. These textbooks were taught at schools, institutes, and universities with the aim of developing the most refined materials for teachers and learners. Results of the analysis of these textbooks revealed various results with respect to the students' and teachers' opinions in reference to evaluation criteria such as aims and approaches, design and organization, skills and strategies, topics, practical considerations and illustrations, language content, and exercises [15, 40, 42, 48,49,50]. For example, Danaye Tous and Haghighi [15] used the above criteria to evaluate an ESP textbook designed for computer engineering students and found that the textbook was not a very good alternative in terms of its design, organization, language content, exercises, skills and strategies, practical considerations and illustrations.

3 The present study

All in all, few studies have used an online hybrid reading intervention featuring cognitive and metacognitive strategies to improve the ESP computer students' reading comprehension and strategy use and probed into the students' and teachers' attitudes toward their ESP textbooks, which is an area of concern because they need to know the meanings of the technical words in their fields and read fluently. Besides, although all the studies above evaluated an ESP textbook for the students of different fields such as computer, chemistry, and medicine, few studies have designed an ESP computer textbook to address the learning needs of the ESP computer students in an EFL context [44]. Thus, the present experimental study is an attempt to fill these noticeable gaps.

In the same vein, Ellis [16] and Tomlinson [53] believed that material evaluation can be carried out in one of three ways: pre-use (predictive evaluation), whilst-use (in-use evaluation), and post-use (retrospective evaluation). The present study conducts an in-use evaluation of a recently-published researcher-made needs-based ESP textbook for computer software students. The aim is to examine whether appropriate four skills activities have been integrated so as to hone their receptive and productive skills and to investigate whether the reading intervention can improve their reading comprehension. In doing so, the researchers formulated the following four research questions:

RQ1: Does the online hybrid reading intervention have a significant effect on the experimental group's reading performance?

RQ2: Does the online hybrid reading intervention have a significant effect on the experimental group's reading strategies use?

RQ3: What are Iranian EFL teachers' and students' perceptions toward the four language skills activities of the newly-published researcher-developed needs-based ESP textbook?

4 Methodology

4.1 Participants

The original pool of the present study consisted of 68 university students (37 males and 31 females) and three university professors at Mazandaran University of Science and Technology. The students were completing their B.Sc. in the field of computer software engineering and the teachers were educated in English Language Teaching (ELT). The students were in the range of 19–26 years and the professors were in the range of 38–49 years of age. The participants were selected based on the convenience sampling method. To ensure whether the participants were homogeneous in terms of their linguistic proficiency prior to their random assignment to the experimental and control groups, Oxford Placement Tests (OPTs) were distributed among them [3]. The OPT results revealed that the participants were of the intermediate level of linguistic proficiency. Besides, the students were learning computer software engineering mostly for continuing their education abroad after participating in the IELTS exam, while the professors were male and had teaching experience of more than 15 years, enough to give the reading comprehension treatment. Pseudonyms were assigned so the participants for the sake of following the ethics and data analysis. The same participants took part in all stages of the study.

4.2 Materials

The material used for the evaluation purpose in this study was a researcher-made needs-based newly-published ESP textbook prepared by Khalili et al. [29] for Iranian computer engineering students. The newly-published book, entitled ''Technical English for Computer Software Engineers'', is available both in print and online and is mainly designed for the entry-level and B.A. students of computer engineering major. Thus, the reading level is B1 and the book has a very good readability. This book includes 10 units (history of computers; operating systems; malware, adware, spyware, ransomware; artificial intelligence; computer programming languages; network and internet; hardware; software; computer games; and data mining) each with a glossed reading passage together with different language skills activities. At the beginning of each passage, an image is used for better illustration. The purpose of developing this book was to familiarize the students and engineers of computer software with computer-related passages. It was expected that this book would add to the specialized knowledge of the students and engineers in the computer software field and that students could easily understand similar technical texts.

To develop the material, an informal interview was initially performed on 100 undergraduate students in the field of computer software engineering to establish what the computer software students perceived as the major skills and sub-skills to be included in the book. Results indicated the desire of the students to include a passage in each chapter together with questions before and after it and to introduce technical words and phrases of the computer field in the margin. Thus, after consulting two experts (i.e., an associate professor of applied linguistics and an expert in the subject-specific field) and receiving the necessary advice on the reading texts relevant in computer engineering field, a variety of reading passages together with true–false, multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blank, and discussion questions were used. Also, the students requested other sections such as vocabulary section, speaking activities, grammar, writing tasks, listening activities, and text translation to be contained in each chapter, which were made possible due to the concerted efforts of the authors of this book.

4.3 Instruments

Four instruments were used in the present study, namely OPT, RCSQ, IELTS, and TEC, which are explained below.

An Oxford Placement Test (OPT) developed by Allan [3] was used to ensure the participants' homogeneity in terms of their linguistic proficiency. OPT consists of 200 multiple-choice items distributed in two sections, namely listening and grammar. Each section consists of 100 items which requires the participants to choose what word they hear ('oarsman' or 'hoarseman'?) and/or check off the correct grammar-related option in terms of the verb tense or sentence structure. Participants were given 60 min to complete the test. OPT has a high internal consistency reliability of 0.94 [21].

A Reading Comprehension Strategies Questionnaire (RCSQ) (see Appendix A) by Al-Behairi [1] was employed to discover what reading strategies computer software students needed to develop in terms of improving their reading comprehension. RCSQ consisted of 25 items and contained five factors, namely inferring (i.e., items 1 to 5), visualizing (i.e., items 6 to 10), synthesizing (i.e., items 11 to 15), questioning (i.e., items 16 to 20), and determining importance (i.e., items 21 to 25). Each factor consisted of five related reading skills/items. Participants were given 30 min to complete the questionnaire. The Cronbach's Alpha internal consistency reliability of the questionnaire was reported to be 0.91 which is high. The validity of the questionnaire was also confirmed by two expert panels including university professors who were not part of the study. They concluded that the checklist measures what it is supposed to measure.

Two IELTS reading comprehension tests, which were adopted from Cambridge IELTS Package 16 published by Cambridge University Press and UCLES [54], were used for the pre- and posttests to quantitatively evaluate the reading comprehension of the participants. Participants were given 30 min to complete the 40-item test. The maximum score possible on the IELTS reading test was 40. The Cronbach's alpha consistency reliability of IELTS reading test is reported as 0.90, which is considered high [4, 26]. Cambridge IELTS reading test contains items that examine the participants' comprehension of the content and lexis and involves matching items, multiple-choice items, comprehension and detailed questions, yes/no questions, and cloze test. The test examines the participants' ability to skim, scan, and understand explicit and implicit information. These questions types are of particular relevance to computer software students who are often asked to retrieve information from tables, diagrams and graphs.

A Textbook Evaluation Checklist (TEC) (see Appendix B) by Pirzad and Abadikhah [37] adapted from Wuttisrisiriporn and Usaha [62] was utilized in the second phase of the study to secure the teachers' and students' perceptions towards the newly-published ESP textbook. The original 70-item TEC contained different sections, namely layout, design, and physical makeup; unit organization; content, topics, and language; language teaching methods and activities; four language skills; vocabulary; and accompanied/supplementary materials. For the purpose of the present study, the four language skills section was only included in the checklist with 24 items and Likert scales of strongly disagree (1), disagree (2), neutral (3), agree (4), and strongly agree (5). Participants were given 30 min to complete the test. The reliability of the checklist has been calculated to be 0.86 which is good. The validity of the checklist had been confirmed by two expert panels including university professors who were not part of the study.

4.4 Procedure

The researchers sought permission from the head of the university to conduct the study. After obtaining the permission, the participants were kindly asked to give their consent to participate in the study. Then, Oxford Placement Tests (OPTs) were electronically distributed among the original pool of the present study. They had 60 min to complete the OPT. Then, the OPTs were collected and marked and subsequently 62 students (i.e., 32 males and 30 females) were identified as the ones with the intermediate level of English proficiency, nearly equivalent to IELTS 6 [3]. Two students were requested to opt out of the study and the remaining ones were randomly assigned to an experimental group (n = 30) and a control group (n = 30). To ensure the lack of random effect of assignment to conditions, it should be noted that the OPT scores were in the range of 135 and 149 (M = 140.30, SD = 4.01). Besides, results of the independent t-tests indicated that there was no statistically significant difference between the experimental group (M = 140.43, SD = 4.42) and the control group (M = 140.17, SD = 3.62) prior to the intervention (t(58) = 0.25; p = 0.79).

The researchers primarily designed a lesson plan and briefed one of the professors one week before the intervention so he realized how to instruct cognitive and metacognitive reading strategies to the participants based on a reading comprehension methodology. The methodology was based on Pritchard and Nasr [38] and Amirian [5]. Before the start of the intervention, the participants in both groups received a Reading Comprehension Strategies Questionnaire (RCSQ) to record their perceptions of the required strategies for developing and improving their reading comprehension in 30 min. Besides, to evaluate their reading comprehension performance, they underwent a Cambridge IELTS reading comprehension test as well. They had 30 min to complete the test.

After taking the pre-tests, the experimental group received a 10-session online hybrid reading intervention delivered on WhatsApp and observed each session by one of the researchers [5, 38]. The intervention consisted of training cognitive reading strategies, such as skimming, scanning, understanding explicit and implicit information, understanding information from figures, understanding the language, understanding referent, recognizing synonyms, guessing meaning from context, recognizing nominal compounds, and finally summarizing and drawing conclusions, as thoroughly explained in Pritchard and Nasr [38]. In each session, the teacher also introduced a new metacognitive reading strategy, such as preparing and planning, selecting and using learning strategies, monitoring strategy use, orchestrating various strategies, and evaluating strategy use and learning, as proposed by and explained in Anderson [6] and spent adequate time to teach and practice it. [Table 1] outlines the reading intervention stages.

Table 1 Reading intervention stages and the related reading comprehension strategies
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The control group did not receive any specific treatment on reading strategies and followed the conventional reading instruction methodology, described below. During the intervention and while taking the pre- and post-tests, the experimental group participants were not permitted to use any dictionary because they were expected to practice vocabulary recognition strategies when stumbling upon unfamiliar words, whereas the control group participants were allowed to use a dictionary.

4.5 The control group

The control group received conventional reading instruction following the reading instruction principles proposed by Sayed [47] through pre-reading, while-reading, and post-reading activities, which were not in place before the outset of the study. The pre-reading phase included an introduction of the topic and raising questions to activate the participants' prior knowledge or schemata about the text. Besides, the teacher would select and pre-teach necessary lexical items to assist the participants with better reading comprehension. Then, he would assign an activity (i.e., writing some comprehension and detailed questions) to the participants to respond to during or after the reading process. The while-reading phase included the participants' silent reading and performing the previously-assigned activity. The post-reading phase included the teacher's calling on a number of participants to read or write their answers. Other participants were allowed to refer to the mistakes and offer corrections or feedback. The teacher would then check and correct their responses and give the ultimate feedback. Finally, the teacher would assist the students with the follow-up activities.

4.6 Post-test administration

At the end of the 10-session reading intervention, the participants were requested to complete the Reading Comprehension Strategies Questionnaire (RCSQ), a Cambridge IELTS reading comprehension test, and a Textbook Evaluation Checklist (TEC). Collectively, they were given 90 min to complete these data collection instruments. The purpose of distributing the TEC tool was to record the teachers' and students' perceptions toward the four language skills activities of the newly-published researcher-developed needs-based ESP textbook, entitled ''Technical English for Computer Software Engineers''.

4.7 Data analysis

The SPSS (Statistic Package for the Social Science) software package, ver. 26, was used to analyze the data. Descriptive statistics were calculated and tabulated for each item and independent-samples t-test analyses were performed to evaluate teachers' and students' perceptions towards the newly-published ESP textbook in terms of four language skills activities.

5 Results

5.1 Research question 1

RQ1: Does the reading intervention have a significant effect on the experimental group's reading performance?

To answer the first research question, IELTS reading tests adopted from Cambridge IELTS Package 16 were used before and after the intervention. To compare the means of the two groups in terms of their reading comprehension performance, independent samples t-tests were used and the results are tabulated in Table 2.

Table 2 Results of the independent samples t-test related to Cambridge IELTS reading test (n = 60)
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Table 2 shows that there was a significant difference in Cambridge IELTS reading scores between the two groups (t(58) = 2.46; p = 0.01). Thus, the reading intervention had a statistically significant effect on the experimental group ESP students' reading comprehension performance compared with their control group counterparts.

5.2 Research question 2

RQ2: Does the reading intervention have a significant effect on the experimental group's reading strategies use?

To answer the second research question, reading comprehension strategies questionnaire (RCSQ) was employed before and after the intervention to track the participants' reading strategies use. To compare the means of the two groups in terms of their reading strategies use, independent samples t-tests were run and the results are tabulated in Tables 3 and 4, respectively.

Table 3 Results of the independent samples t-test related to RCSQ reading strategy use constructs in the posttest (n = 60)
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Table 4 Results of the independent samples t-test related to RCSQ reading strategy use items in the posttest (n = 60)
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Table 3 indicates that there was a significant difference in reading strategies use between the two groups in terms of three constructs, namely inferring t(58) = 4.19, p = 0.00, synthesizing t(58) = 2.47, p = 0.01, and questioning t(58) = 2.06, p = 0.04. Thus, the reading intervention had a statistically significant effect on the experimental group ESP students' reading strategies use in terms of inferring, synthesizing, and questioning compared with their control group counterparts.

In particular, Table 4 shows that three items on the RCSQ questionnaire revealed statistical significance in terms of the two groups' posttest scores, namely item 1 (t(58) = 2.51, p = 0.01), item 3 (t(58) = 2.00, p = 0.05), and item 11 (t(58) = 2.24, p = 0.02). Item 1 (i.e., drawing conclusions) and item 3 (i.e., making judgments and predictions) belong to the first construct, namely inferring, while item 11 (i.e., ordering the ideas of the text) belongs to the third construct, namely synthesizing.

6 Research question 3

RQ3: What are Iranian EFL teachers' and students' perceptions toward the four language skills activities of the newly-published researcher-developed needs-based ESP textbook?

To answer the third research question, a textbook evaluation checklist (TEC) developed by Pirzad and Abadikhah [37] was used to collect the participants' perceptions towards the integration of the four language skills activities in the newly-published ESP textbook developed for B.Sc. computer software students. Table 5 displays the students' and teachers' perceptions in terms of three scales, namely scale 1 (disagree), scale 2 (no idea), and scale 3 (agree).

Table 5 Results of the textbook evaluation checklist completed by the students (n = 60) and teachers (n = 3)
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As evident from Table 5, both the teachers and the students mostly agreed with the items on the textbook evaluation checklist except for the writing section (t(61) = 2.29; p = 0.02). In particular, the ESP students and teachers almost disagreed with items 20 to 24 from the writing section. The ESP students and teachers almost agreed with the remaining items from the other three sections, namely listening, speaking, and reading.

7 Discussion

Research reveals that ESP students of various fields of study have difficulties understanding the passages in technical English textbooks. To ease their reading comprehension process, recent research has shifted to embrace metacognitive strategies instruction. Yet, there is stark paucity in terms of specifying which combination of strategies to teach and designing an ESP textbook that would address the actual needs of these students. Thus, the aim of the present paper was twofold: First, it strove to assist the ESP students with their reading comprehension and strategy use through a reading intervention. Second, it probed into the ESP students' and teachers' perceptions about the reading comprehension skills and strategies that students needed to develop in order to improve their reading comprehension and analyzed their perceptions in terms of the inclusion of four skills activities incorporated in the researcher-developed needs-based ESP textbook.

Research question 1

The overall result of the present study was in favor of teaching the metacognitive reading strategies underscoring the vital role metacognition plays in the enhancement of the ESP students' reading skill and sub-skills. This further suggests that should reading be taught aligned with metacognitive strategies instruction, positive outcomes could be expected by the instructors. Our findings are in compliance with those of Boakye [9] and Boakye and Linden [10] reporting that the participants' reading comprehension and use of appropriate reading strategies significantly improved as a result of the intervention with an integrated reading approach. Similar results were also reported by Li et al. [34] and Aryanjam et al. [7] by the end of the treatment. Besides, the students had a positive attitude toward the efficacy of the instruction which led to their improved use of the reading skills.

Several theories can justify our findings with respect to the reading intervention. First, our findings are in tandem with Vygotsky's [58] sociocultural theory in that when scaffolded by strategies, the students can become more successful readers. Through learning strategies, they could plan, monitor, and evaluate their reading comprehension process and improve their reading skills. Thus, findings suggested that the intervention program could meet the ESP students' academic needs. Second, informed by the tenets of the constructivist reading theory, the participants in the present study were able to create meaning from the text, suggesting that reading is not merely about receiving instruction but constructing knowledge. In doing so, they used their schema or background knowledge and cognitive development to make sense of the text, which indicates their active role and agency in their self-regulated reading.

Research question 2.

In the same vein, we need to ensure that the effect of the metacognitive reading strategies taught are lasting at least from the pre- to the posttest, hence the need to examine whether the reading intervention had a significant effect on the ESP students' reading strategies use. As regards this question, our findings confirmed that the experimental group ESP students outperformed their control group counterparts with respect to inferring, synthesizing, and questioning. Results are contrary to those of Li et al. [34] who reported no significant changes in reading strategies use, reading motivation, and reading self-efficacy by the end of the intervention, which could be accounted for by a number of personal and contextual factors.

Theoretically, considering the online intervention trait, our findings are in agreement with those of Huang and Yang [27] and Wang [59] who found significant effects, but contrary to those of Yan and Kim [63] who found no improvements. To account for this dissonance, it can be said that when low-achieving or inexperienced readers approach the reading passages, they might face comprehension breakdowns while attempting to figure out what the main ideas or supporting details are [11]. Thus, they have a hard time making inferences from the text containing unfamiliar words due to a lack of prior knowledge with which to make interconnections and reading strategies to ease their comprehension process [30]. Therefore, it is advisable that EFL teachers assist them with making successful predictions about the text by providing them with adequate background knowledge and reading strategies before proceeding with the text by means of explicit modeling, prompts and cues to arm them with the ability to marshal their higher-order thinking processes, connect ideas together, and establish connections between them [12].

Research question 3

Lastly, the present study bore on Iranian EFL teachers' and students' perceptions toward the four language skills activities of the newly-published ESP textbook. To answer the question, both the teachers and the students mostly agreed with the items on the textbook evaluation checklist except for the writing section which calls for the need to improve the writing skill activities in the textbook in the upcoming editions so as to meet the needs of these students. Results are in accord with those of Danaye Tous and Haghighi [15], Sadeghi [42], and Vahdatnia and Salehi [46] whose participants thought the textbook could not maintain an adequate balance of four skills that would lead to an improvement in EFL students' linguistic proficiency. However, similar to Riasati and Zare [39], the instructors believed that the textbook included engaging activities that would increase the students' interaction in class. In addition, results are similar to those of Suhirman [50] whose participants reported a downside in terms of the language skills, but asserted that the textbook could address the students' learning needs.

On the contrary, our findings are not in harmony with those of other researchers [27, 31, 39, 41, 45] since the EFL instructors had a positive perception toward the English textbook and believed that the four skills were equally and adequately represented in it. Lei and Soontornwipast's [33] participants also maintained that the textbook was successful in terms of physical attributes, teaching aids, language skills, and cultural topics. Finally, the participants in Umar and Ameen [55] were mostly satisfied with the textbook indicating the appropriacy of the content, layout, design, presentation, and organization. Topics were carefully selected and organized to meet the academic and professional needs of the students.

8 Conclusion

The present study aimed at honing the ESP students' reading skill. In doing so, an online hybrid reading intervention was administered for eight sessions and the researchers examined whether it would affect the students' reading comprehension performance. To capture the students' performance, IELTS reading tests were used as a pre-test and a post-test. Results indicated that there was a statistically significant difference between the experimental and the control groups by the end of the intervention. In addition, the experimental group students' reading strategies use in terms of inferring, synthesizing, and questioning improved as a result of the intervention.

That said, the researchers collected the participants' perceptions in terms of the reading comprehension strategies thought to be needed for the ESP students to improve their reading comprehension of their ESP textbook passages. The ESP students referred to summarization, identifying specific details, discovering new ideas, and bringing different ideas together as the most prominent reading comprehension strategies. On the other hand, the ESP teachers believed that inferring and determining importance were both the most important reading strategies constructs.

Informed by an informal interview, the researchers also evaluated a newly-published researcher-developed ESP textbook, entitled ''Technical English for Computer Software Engineers'' compiled and written by Khalili et al. [29] and published by the Odyssey publishing house in 2023. The evaluation was carried out by means of a textbook evaluation checklist, which gave us an in-depth understanding of the textbooks four language skills activities. Results suggested that there was a general consensus among students and teachers with respect to three skills, namely listening, speaking, and reading. However, both groups were uncertain about the efficacy of the writing activities. ESP teachers maintained that no process-based approach to writing was encouraged. The writing purpose was not made clear. No account of organizational patterns, cohesive devices, or grammatical structures was provided and finally there was a lack of an assessment checklist to promote autonomous learning. Thus, it could be concluded that only three skills were adequately covered. However, it seems that the newly-published textbook can fairly meet the ESP computer engineering students' learning needs. After all, there is no perfect textbook that can meet all the teachers' and students' teaching or learning needs [13, 18].

The study's limitations should be acknowledged: The present study was limited to a group of 60 ESP students randomly selected from a university in Babol and thus left the senior college students' and postgraduate students' perceptions untouched. Needless to say, the study selected participants who were homogeneous in terms of their linguistic proficiency measured through OPT, but could select them with respect to their reading proficiency by means of a comprehensive test or at least a test on reading proficiency. Also, public universities were not included and thus the results cannot be generalized to them. In addition, only 3 university professors' perceptions [52] were analyzed and reported which represents a relatively small group of participants, and thus, the views are not necessarily generalizable to all the university professors. Finally, the hybrid intervention duration was equal to 8 online sessions, which, although yielding significant results, could be more to reinforce the generalizability and robustness of the results.

However, findings bear pedagogical significance in that policy makers, material developers, curriculum designers and all other stakeholders can benefit from the reading strategy instruction used in this study to raise the ESP learners' awareness of the reading strategies and improve their reading comprehension performance. Also useful for teaching in EFL contexts such as Iran is the newly-published book which was compiled by the authors although the writing section needs some amendments in terms of requiring a process-based approach to writing, clearly stating the writing purpose, giving an account of organizational patterns, cohesive devices, and grammatical structures, and finally providing an assessment checklist in the future editions. After all, all four language skills must be covered equally and adequately throughout the book. Individual differences and contextual factors must also be taken into a careful scrutiny. Future studies need to consider a larger sample size from various universities, examine the long-term effect of the online hybrid reading intervention, and consider other personal and contextual factors. Also of significance to the future line of research is a consideration of other intervention variations, such as flipped and online-flipped hybrid reading interventions.