The Effect of Metacognitive Strategies Instruction on Reading Comprehension Ability among Learners with Different Degrees of Motivation and Metacognitive Knowledge

This study aims to investigate the effect of metacognitive strategies instruction on reading comprehension among learners with different degrees of awareness of metacognitive reading strategies and motivation to read in English. For this purpose, after receiving reading comprehension strategies and motivation to read questionnaires and obtaining scores below or above the mean, 85 students were divided into four groups with different degrees of reading strategies awareness and motivation to read. The participants were instructed reading comprehension strategies and test of reading comprehension was given to them. Instruments employed in the study were the 40-item standard test of English propficiency (Nelson), reading comprehension test (Talebi, 2015), reading strategies questionnaire (Mokhtari & Reichard, 2002), and motivation to read questionnaire (Komiyama, 2013). For data analysis, descriptive statistics including mean and standard deveiation and inferential statistics of ANCOVA were used to test the research hypotheses. Analysis of data showed that as a result of reading strategy instruction, all four groups improved significantly in reading comprehension ability. The overall improvement was most observed in the group with the highest degree of awareness of reading strategies and motivation to read and least observed in the group with the lowest degree of awareness of reading strategies and motivation to read.  Catergorywise analysis also showed inconsistency in reading performance in different groups. It can be concluded that the different combinations of learner charecteristics have effects on the outcome of the instruction of metacognitive reading strategies and material developers and reading instructors are recommended to consider them.