The impact of metacognitive strategy use on Arabic text comprehension among secondary school students / Mohd Sham Kamis

This thesis aimed to investigate the impact of utilizing the Metacognitive Strategy
(MCS) in reading Arabic texts among students in Sekolah Menengah Kebangsaan
Agama (SMKA) in Seremban, Negeri Sembilan. Specifically, this study was designed
to; a) identify the use of planning, monitoring, and evaluating strategies in reading
Arabic texts; b) identify the impact of MCS use on Arabic reading comprehension and
vocabulary acquisition; and c) identify the problems in reading Arabic texts during the
planning, monitoring, and evaluating strategies after receiving treatment. Generally,
students who lack effective reading strategies might face difficulties in dealing with
vocabulary and comprehension skills such as distinguishing different text structures and
making inferences. Consequently, this may hinder students from mastering reading
comprehension skills. In this study, the data were gathered using questionnaires, tests,
and interviews. Specifically, 60 participants took part in answering the questionnaires,
30 participants for the tests, and six participants for the interviews. A mixed method
design was applied to investigate the main variables. The analysis of data in the
quantitative part that dominantly involved SPSS Version 26 was conducted to elicit
information from the descriptive statistics and inferential statistics. In the qualitative
part, thematic analysis was carried out based on the transcriptions gathered from the
interviews. Data collected from descriptive statistics, inferential statistics, and thematic
analysis were then triangulated to provide answers based on the three main objectives.
The analysis of the data gathered revealed the following results. Firstly, the participants
were found to be high users of the planning and monitoring strategies, while for the
evaluating strategy, they were found to be moderate users. Secondly, the results showed
a significant difference between the experimental group and the control group in the
post-test score of the comprehension test and vocabulary test after controlling the
extraneous variable. The results from the experimental group were higher than the
control group because they former was exposed to the metacognitive strategies in the
MCS Training as a treatment. Thirdly, the result showed that the participants faced a
total of four problems in the planning strategy, two problems in the monitoring strategy,
and two problems in the evaluating strategy. This study has theoretical and practical
implications on classroom practice, specifically in the teaching and learning of the
Arabic language. The findings demonstrated that MCS is an important factor to be
considered when reading as this factor may affect the comprehension and vocabulary
in reading Arabic texts. In addition, the findings showed that MCS training helped less
successful learners to improve their comprehension and vocabulary learning in reading
Arabic texts. The findings also suggested the importance of instilling awareness about
metacognitive learning strategies among students and teaching metacognitive strategies
explicitly through strategy trainings which can generate positive results among learners
in reading comprehension.