Khonamri and Ahmadi - Standard Global Journals

Standard Global Journal of Educational Research Vol 1(3): 072- 075, March 2014
http://www.standardglobaljournals.com/journals/sgjer
Research Article
The Impact of Metacognitive and Reading
Comprehension Strategy Training on Iranian EFL
learners’ Reading Performance
*1
Fatemeh Khonamri and 2Maryam Ahmadi
1
Assistant Professor, Dept. of English, University of Mazandaran
2
MA student, Dept. of English, University of Mazandaran
*Corresponding Author E-mail: [email protected], [email protected]
Accepted 24 February, 2014
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Abstract
This paper reports on a study investigating the effect of metacognitive and reading comprehension
strategy training on reading ability of Iranian Elementary EFL learners. There were two experimental
groups and one control group at elementary level. The first experimental group was taught reading
comprehension strategies and the second one received metacognitive strategy training. Seventy five
(75) non-English major students at three groups, both male and female, took a reading
comprehension test at the beginning of a reading course and again at the end of the course.
Descriptive statistics were used to describe the respondents’ reading performance on the reading
test. The one-way ANOVA analyses indicated that the participants’ reading ability in the two
experimental groups has increased. Furthermore, the results of paired t-test illustrate that
metacognitive strategy training had more significant effect on students’ reading ability compared to
reading comprehension strategy instruction. In short, the findings of this study suggest that strategy
awareness significantly contributes to reading ability of students and the higher their knowledge of
reading processes, the better their reading ability.
Keywords: strategy training, metacognitive strategies, reading comprehension strategies, reading ability
INTRODUCTION
During the last few decades, there has been a marked shift in the focus of language instruction towards the needs of
learners and their responsibilities in learning. They are becoming less dependent on the language teacher and more
autonomous to diagnose their own learning strengths and weaknesses (Tarone and Yule, 1989, cited in Cohen, 1998).
Extensive investigation has shown the importance of language learning strategies (Wenden, 1987). The change that has
taken place increases the use of language learning strategies as a great help in making learning more efficient and
effective (Oxford and Crookall, 1989).
Two types of language learning strategies used to improve reading are reading comprehension strategies and
metacognitive strategies.
Reading strategies are important for EFL students because the limited opportunities in accessing English make
English reading strategies equally important to EFL students, English written materials become major resources and
language input for them to learn and acquire English. Reading is a valuable source of language input for language
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Khonamri and Ahmadi 073
acquisition (Bernhardt, 1993). Thus, reading strategies should be emphasized in the initial stages of language learning.
EFL students need to know or learn how to read with ease in order to be motivated to read more English materials to
build up their English ability.
Reading Strategies
Reading is a complex cognitive activity requiring a set of processes and strategies. Reading is defined as a
communicative act or the transformation of text into discourse by an individual; accordingly both text and context need to
be taken into account in any description of reading and when a reader recreates discourse from a written text he
performs the act of reading (Grellet, 1981, cited in jamshidi and yazdani, 2013).
Purpose of the Study
As Nunan (1999) noted, there is a need to develop the learners’ awareness of the process underlying their own learning
strategies; so that learners will not only become better readers, but also more effective language learners. To do so, this
study is intended for investigating whether instructing different strategies, has any effect on the students' reading ability.
METHODOLOGY
Participants
One hundred (100) learners of English as a foreign language participated in the current study. They were non-English
major students, both male and female, who had enrolled for reading courses at Estiri’s English Language Academy in
Sabzevar. The mean age of the participants of the study was about twenty seven (27), ranging from eighteen (18) to
thirty (35). To measure their proficiency, a standard multiple-choice cloze test was applied at the beginning of the
course. This was done to homogenize the participants of the study with regard to their proficiency test scores. The
participants whose scores were close to the mean, i.e. one standard deviation above and below the mean, were
selected. This resulted in the selection of seventy five (75) participants for the study. Participants of this study were
selected from one institute and they were taught by the same teacher to reduce the effect of learning situation and
teacher characteristics.
Instruments
Two tests were used in this study which is as follows: a standard proficiency test (multiple-choice cloze test) to
homogenize participants, a reading comprehension test (Nelson Reading Skills Test) as a pre- and post-test.
Procedure
In this research, the subjects were randomly assigned into two (2) experimental groups and one (1) control group. Three
groups of students were compared. The first experimental group passed a reading course in which some reading
strategies were taught and the students did different activities to apply those strategies. The reading strategies taught in
this course were: identifying general and specific meanings, identifying facts and opinions, identifying the structure of a
paragraph, identifying the topic and supporting sentences, scanning, skimming, understanding inferences, summarizing
and understanding paragraph organization. The second experimental group attended a reading course in which
metacognitive strategies were taught. The metacognitive strategies taught in this class were planning strategies
including advance organizers, directed attention, selective attention, self-management and purposeful reading. The
control group was traditionally taught and received no specific instruction on the use of the above-mentioned strategies.
At the beginning of the course, a proficiency test was given to both groups to see if they were homogeneous. Besides, a
reading comprehension test (Nelson Reading Skills Test) was given to the participants as a pre-test to investigate the
extent of their reading comprehension ability. Then, the students in the experimental groups underwent fifteen (15)
sessions of training on reading and metacognitive strategies. On the other hand, in the control group, the similar reading
texts were used without directing the participants’ attention to any of the strategies mentioned above so that they just
focused on the outcome of reading. At the end of the treatment period, a post-test of reading comprehension test was
administered to know the influences of awareness of reading comprehension and metacognitive strategies on the
learners’ reading comprehension abilities.
Khonamri and Ahmadi 074
Data analysis
The collected data was analyzed quantitatively. To come up with reasonable answers to the research questions oneway ANOVA and paired t-tests were run respectively to compare the mean scores and determine the effects of
independent variables on the dependent ones.
RESULTS
A one-way ANOVA was conducted to determine the variance on the mean scores of the pre-test and post-test of
reading for the three groups.
Table 1. One way ANOVA (comparing the mean scores of the three groups in pre- and post-test)
Groups
Control
EG 1
EG2
Control
EG1
EG2
Pre
Post
N
25
25
25
25
25
25
Mean
17.16
17.68
17.44
16.35
18.97
19.68
Std. Deviation
3.48
3.13
3.20
4.32
3.16
3.87
Df
.158
Sig
.854
5.276
.007
Based on this table, the results illustrate regarding the pre-tests (P = .854 >.05) p value is more than assumed level of
significance (i.e., .05) thus it indicates a non-significant difference between the mean scores of the three groups on the
pretest of reading comprehension. Thus it can be concluded that the experimental and control groups were homogenous
in terms of the reading comprehension ability prior to the administration of the reading comprehension strategy training.
But, as it is obvious in the table, for the post-tests (P = .007< .05) p value is lower than assumed level of significance so
it indicates a significant difference between the mean scores of the three groups on the post-test of reading
comprehension. Furthermore, the difference between the mean scores shows that the participants’ reading ability in the
two experimental groups has increased.
In order to pinpoint exactly where the differences were, Tukey test as a post hoc test was also used. As the Tukey test
shows, the difference between the control group and EG1 and also the control group and EG2 is significant but the
difference between EG1 and EG2 is not significant.
Table 2. Multiple Comparisons of the three groups’ mean scores on the posttest
Dependent Variable
POSTNEW
(I) group (J) group
Control EG1
Control EG2
EG1
EG2
Mean difference (I-J)
-2.62
3.32
-.70
Std. Error
1.07
1.07
1.07
Sig.
.046
.008
.792
*. The mean difference is significant at the 0.05 level.
As displayed in the above table, the differences are found to exist between the mean scores of the control group and
EG1 (p=.046) and between the control group and EG2 (p=.008). However, there is no significant difference between the
two experimental groups (p=.792). Therefore, it can be concluded that both EG1 and EG2 have improved in their
reading ability in their posttest.
To investigate which strategy training (metacognitive or reading comprehension) had a better effect on participants’
reading ability, paired t-test was run for each group.
Table 3. Paired sample t-test for reading ability of the three groups
Group
Control
EG1
EG2
pre
post
pre
post
pre
post
Mean
17.16
16.35
17.68
18.97
17.44
19.68
N
25
25
25
25
25
25
Std. Deviation
3.48
4.32
3.13
3.16
3.20
3.87
Paired Differences
T
Mean Std. Deviation
.81
2.5
1.61
Df
Sig.(2-tailed)
24
.121
-1.30
1.44
-4.49
24
.000
-2.24
1.58
-7.1
24
.000
Based on the obtained results in table 4.3, the calculated p value for the control group is higher than .05 thus there is no
significant difference between the mean scores of the pre- and post-test. But in EG1 and EG2, the difference is
Khonamri and Ahmadi 075
significant because the computed p value is lower than .05. In addition, the difference between the mean scores shows
that the mean score of EG1 has increased 1.3 and the mean score of EG2 has increased 2.24 points. The results
indicate that both reading comprehension strategies and metacognitive strategies affected the participants’ reading
ability. But metacognitive strategies improved EFL learners’ reading ability a little bit better than reading comprehension
strategies. Based on the results of the Tukey test, the difference between the two experimental groups was
DISCUSSION
As the analyses showed, participants in the experimental groups made significant progress in their post-test with respect
to reading ability. Therefore, the treatment had a positive impact on the reading performance of these groups.
The findings of the present study side with and support the study done by Azizi (2003) who showed the contribution of
awareness of reading strategies to reading comprehension. Sheorey and Mokhtari (2001), highlight the vital role of ESL
learners’ awareness of their reading strategies in the development of comprehension in the tasks assigned. They
believe that knowing the metacognitive strategies and being aware of the strategies used may aid students to be
responsive as well as to be able to construct meaning from the text. The information provided in the research could
perhaps increase the awareness of reading strategies of the readers while reading and foster their understanding of the
process and help them to be thoughtful, constructively responsive and strategic readers. In the present study, the
researcher tried to make the learners aware of the reading strategies and it was observed that the participants in the
experimental groups became better strategic readers.
The findings of the study are consistent with the results of previous studies by Caverly, et al. (2004), El-Hindi (1996),
and Shenkman and Cukras (1986), who concluded that reading strategy instruction has positive effects on students'
metacognitive strategic reading performance in developmental courses. Therefore, strategy instruction helped these
students be aware of the need for recognizing and applying appropriate and effective strategies when reading.
CONCLUSION
This study focused on improving the effectiveness of reading comprehension by giving responsibilities to learners for
their own learning by training them to take advantage of reading comprehension strategies and by allowing them to take
control of the language learning process, hoping that applying these strategies not only contributes to their
comprehension but also motivates the learner to participate actively in reading comprehension activities.
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