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Трудности студентов при чтении научных текстов
University professors note that students face difficulties in reading, especially when dealing with scientific texts. Yet the reasons why students have difficulties are studied, but there is no uniform categorisation of them or understanding of at what stage of reading these difficulties arise. Research focuses on reading in a foreign language, while reading in the mother tongue is neglected. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to identify and relate academic reading difficulties in Russian to cognitive stages during reading. As a research method, we conducted an online survey on academic reading difficulties. The survey involved 2231 first-year students of HSE University of most faculties. The obtained data were interpreted and correlated with the model of cognitive processes of reading X. Khalifa and C. J. Weir: difficulties at the level of text as a unit of language, at the level of text as a unit of communication (content and meaning of the text), academic difficulties (use of text information to solve other academic tasks). According to the survey results, at the level of text as a unit of language, the greatest difficulty is the large volume of text, terms/academic vocabulary, and lack of professional knowledge. The latter difficulty directly affects the students' ability to determine the reading strategy (reading with general coverage of the content, selective or full comprehension). The main difficulty at the level of text as a unit of communication is the ability to understand special vocabulary/terminology. The most significant academic difficulties were obtaining a high grade in the discipline and completing research/writing papers. The obtained results make a significant contribution to the study of the problem of academic reading in Russian and can become the basis for creating a comprehensive system of tasks to overcome these difficulties.