metacognition

This article examines those children's stories that present the events to the young audience in a particular way; as a result, the audience finds him/herself as more intelligent and knowledgeable than the hero and characters of the story. The children feel that they understand the essence of the story better and more correctly than the hero, and most probably they discover the hero’s mistake; therefore, they are the ones who sit in the position of judging, examining, interpreting, and sometimes construing the stories. These books define the link between the narrative and the audience in a new way and put the audience above the story. These stories are thought-provoking from the perspective of psychology and epistemology as well as of narratology and the art of storytelling. In most of these works, the illustrations play a significant role alongside the text, and perhaps the visual narration is more in complicity with the young audience in terms of providing information. This information makes the audience more aware of the hero and gives them the opportunity to look at the story from above. This research is based on a number of stories for children and, in some cases, young adults from Iran and around the world. The works are considered the best examples of this style and represent the broad and colorful range of this category of narratives.

One of Mowlavi's essential concerns in Mathnawi is the conditions of obtaining knowledge, along with the limitations and obstacles that hinder its realization. His attention to the problem of cognition and its multiple dimensions brings his opinions close to the border of modern thinking about metacognitive knowledge. The problem of cognition is such a severe issue for Rumi that every narrative and story is involved in one of the problems of cognition and its complexities. This article employs a descriptive-analytical method that metacognitive knowledge, defined as cognitive supervision, is one of the essential principles of Mowlavi's Mathnawi. Numerous metacognitive foundations and functions can be traced in Mathnawi. In this article, two metacognitive foundations, "schema" and "personal motivation system," and two functions, "supervision of the cognitive process" and "awareness of the cognitive situation," are examined. It is taken and shown that Mowlavi's Mathnawi is a work with metacognitive and cognitive value due to its inclusion of monitoring, evaluation, and mental pathology. This awareness of the conditions of obtaining knowledge leads Mowlavi to criticize reductionist and mono-structural knowledge.

This study investigated the effect of the metacognitive intervention on the listening performance and metacognitive awareness of upper-intermediate EFL learners with high working memory capacity (WMC). 152 Iranian male learners aged between 15 and 25 years were given Oxford Placement Tests (OPT), and 86 were identified as upper-intermediate learners. They were further given the Visual Digit Span Test (DST), and 60 high WMC learners were selected and randomly assigned to experimental (N=30), and control (N=30) groups. The experimental group received the metacognitive intervention through a pedagogical cycle for 10 sessions while the control group followed their traditional approach. The participants were asked to complete the Metacognitive Awareness Listening Questionnaire (MALQ) and to take the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) listening tests before and after the intervention. The results suggested that the experimental group had a higher gain with a large effect size in terms of listening performance than the control group. In addition, the experimental group reported the significantly higher use of directed attention, mental translation and person knowledge.

1. Introduction Given the role of affective variables in relatively every facet of human life, the research into the function of self-efficacy systems on individuals’ behavior and performance has recently carried much weight for psychologists and educators. Translation as a higher–order cognitive task is also viewed both as a process of problem-solving strategies and decision making. More specifically, translation competence in PACTE’s TC model encompasses five sub-competences, among which strategic competence is of utmost importance, playing a pivotal role in solving problems and making interrelations between the other sub-competences. All these sub-competences are also connected to the psycho-physiological component, reflecting cognitive and behavioral, and psychomotor mechanisms. Consequently, self-efficacy and problem-solving strategies can make contributions to each other according to this model.
Although translation strategies are of essence to translation process, whereby relevant decisions are made, the available literature shows somehow the neglected field of problem-solving strategies in the field of translation. Therefore, this study tries to investigate this relationship and to determine the way and to what extent translators’ self-efficacy influences the complex process of problem-solving and decision making throughout the translation practice.
Self-efficacy, the principal notion of Bandura’s social cognitive theory (1997), is defined as the belief in one’s capabilities to organize and execute courses of action required to manage prospective situations. In fact, self-efficacy plays a significant role in achieving goals, performing tasks, and approaching challenges. What is more, people’s level of motivation, affective states, and actions are based more on what they believe than on what is objectively true. On the other hand, translation strategies are at the core of translation process; every translation entails a certain strategy and each translator possesses a specific one. Actually, translators face multiple constraints at various levels and stages, which require tapping into more effective decision making and problem-solving strategies; and translators’ self-efficacy perceptions may serve a function on the strategies they choose in their performance.
2. Methodology A total of 76 translation students of Imam Reza International University and Ferdowsi University of Mashhad participated voluntarily in this study. Their selection was based on convenience sampling. The sample was made up of 19 males (25%), 54 females (71%), and 3 non-mentioned (3.9%) whose first language was Persian. Their background education encompassed BA translation studies and literature in English. The primary purpose of the present inquiry was to develop an inventory scale to examine the probable impact of self-efficacy sense of student translators on their translation strategies. In so doing, two inventory scales of Translation Self-efficacy (TSE) and Translation Problem-solving Strategy (TPSS) in English were designed. The selection of scale items for the self-efficacy questionnaire was based on Bandura’s self-efficacy theory. The earlier version of the questionnaire was also consulted with two translation specialists for the better improvement and clarity of the scale. The construction of translation problem-solving strategy questionnaire was basically a case of the researchers’ personal experience based on their classroom observation of translation students. However, the main focus was on shared translation strategies which are commonly employed and verbally stated by translation students. Moreover, the earlier version of the scale was consulted with two translation teachers who commented on the items.
3. Discussion Statistical analysis indicated that both scales enjoyed validity and reliability. Upon running an exploratory factor analysis to identify interrelationships among items in the scales, a couple of factors were extracted from both questionnaires. As for TSE, 7 factors were loaded and labeled. They were willingness to translate, motivation enhancement for translating, the ineffectiveness of colleagues’ remedial points on reducing motivation, demotivation in facing problems, positive feeling and translation, and having no fear against translating problems. Along with that, 5 factors were extracted from TPSS and labeled as metacognitive strategy (evaluating and designing strategy), reviewing the text in order to simplify next translating, translating then evaluating, reviewing the text prior to translating, and utilizing dictionaries.
In order to examine the relationship between students’ self-efficacy and translation strategy scores, the Pearson-Product Moment formula was used between the loaded factors of both questionnaires. Statistical calculations accounted for a significant relation between the first factor of the TPSS questionnaire (i.e. metacognitive strategy) and the first and second factors of the TSE questionnaire (i.e. willingness to translate and also self-assuredness in ability to translate). What is more, using a dictionary made a modest contribution to the enhancement of motivation. An important implication of these findings is that the translation students who showed no concern or stress in facing translation problems were more qualified in designing and evaluating the relevant strategy in translating practice. It was also derived that the enthusiasm and confidence of students in translating were perceived to be inclining toward the application of metacognitive strategies. It can also be inferred that high-efficacious people compared to low-efficacious ones are cognitively and metacognitively aware of their behavior, trust themselves, and are able to control their demeanor and envisage success or failure.
4. Conclusion Summing up the results, self-efficacy’s potentiality in the translation domain is evident in this study, which helped to broaden the insight of such tenet in connection with the application of translation problem-solving strategies. More importantly, the extant literature substantiates the findings of the present study as regards the impact of self-efficacy beliefs on stress, self-confidence, willingness, and motivation; therefore, meticulous recognition of the source, nature, significance, and process of efficacy perceptions serves the merit of proposing and developing practical guidelines on improving training and performance of translation students as well as stimulating translation expertise.

Reading is the fundamental skill upon which all formal education depends. Nowadays, more and more university students throughout the world are required to learn EFL in order to read textbooks and professional journals which are written in English. On the other hand, efficient reading is not only a hard work; it is an extremely complex and challenging mental task. Hence, in order to provide support to readers to handle this task, it is necessary to identify their specific areas of difficulty and their strength and weaknesses. Therefore, based on the metacognition and self- assessment conceptualizations, this research was conducted to further our understanding of the Iranian student's self-reported reading difficulties. The data were collected by asking 20 M.A English teaching students from a university in Kermanshah city to have a self- reflection and write about their difficulties in English reading skill. The reported statements were codified and analyzed, and the frequency of each reported difficulty was calculated accordingly. Results, at the word level, indicated that students mostly mentioned limited vocabulary knowledge and difficulty in retrieving a word that they have already stored in memory (dysnomia) as their topmost reading difficulties. At the text level, lack of fluency in reading, lack of familiarity with the subject matter, difficulty level of the text (readability) and lack of use of proper reading strategies were mentioned as topmost reading difficulties.