Investigating the Relationship between Iranian EFL Learners’ Learning Style and Metacognitive Listening Awareness at Two Levels of Language Proficiency

In this study, the relationship between Iranian EFL learners’ learning style and metacognitive listening awareness at two proficiency levels (pre-intermediate and upper-intermediate) were examined. To this end, two questionnaires were administered to 142 Iranian EFL learners at eight language institutes in Shiraz, Iran. Among the participants, 75 were at the pre-intermediate level, and 67 were at the upper-intermediate level. To ascertain participants’ learning style, they were invited to complete the Reid’s Learning Style Questionnaire (RLSQ) (i.e., visual, auditory, tactile, and kinesthetic). To measure the participants’ metacognitive listening awareness, the Metacognitive Awareness Listening Questionnaires (MALQ) were given to the participants. The Pearson correlations were measured to detect the relationship between EFL students’ learning style and their listening metacognitive awareness at two levels of language proficiency. In addition, regression analyses were done to check which component of RLSQ can best predict the participants’ metacognitive listening awareness. At two levels of language proficiency, the results demonstrated a significant association between Iranian EFL learners’ learning style and their metacognitive listening awareness. Metacognitive listening awareness was assessed for pre- and upper-intermediate EFL students using the Beta values, which were used to compare the relative contributions of each learning style to metacognitive listening awareness. Beta values of four predictor variables (visual, auditory, tactile, and kinesthetic) revealed that auditory style had a higher contribution to the metacognitive listening awareness in the upper-intermediate group, and visual style had a stronger contribution to the dependent variable in the pre-intermediate group.