An investigation into ESL readers’ metacognitive strategy awareness / Caroline Michael Umbak

The main aim of this study was to investigate the level of metacognitive strategy awareness among a group ESL students. The study involved 19 ESL students reading a bachelor’s degree in Administrative Science at Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) Sarawak. These students were selected based on convenience sample as they were readily available and were willing to participate in the research. The students were given a set of five-point Likert- scale Metacognitive Awareness Questionnaire (MAQ) to complete at the beginning of the investigation. The students were informed of the purposes and requirements of the survey, and they were asked to provide honest responses. After a period of two weeks during which the students went through a normal academic reading class with their lecturer, a selected number of students (10) were interviewed to find out their actual reading process. The single interview was conducted immediately after the students completed their reading task so that the reading experience was still fresh for recall by the students during the interview. The quantitative data were analysed using SPSS Version 16 descriptive statistics for mean score and standard deviation to determine the level of metacognitive awareness. The qualitative interview data were transcribed, analysed and interpreted to determine the actual strategy use during reading. The interview data were deemed useful in corroborating the statistical results. The findings indicate that for all the metacognitive strategy types, the level of awareness was very poor at a mean of below 2.00. The findings from the interview data also show that the students were unaware of metacognitive strategies. Based on the findings, the researcher concludes that these students were not strategic readers because they lacked the active monitoring and consequent regulation and orchestration of information processing activities or what Flavell (1976) referred to as metacognition. With an average level of 2.00, the students did not seem to show control of their own learning.