Dr.Raniyah - Descriptive Analysis.docx

This study verifies the efficacy of the metacognitive approach in reading comprehension using a quasi-experimental design with a pre- and post-test. It was inspired by Habibian's (2015) study in verifying the role of metacognitive strategies in developing EFL learners’ reading comprehension. It used both a TOEFL reading test as well as a questionnaire to check the participants' attitudes at the end of the intervention on the impact of metalinguistic awareness in developing Saudi EFL learners’ reading comprehension. It specially tries to identify which one of the four elements of metalinguistic awareness was applied more according to the participants' attitudes.<br>A TOEFL test extracted from the book "Building Skills for the TOEFL iBT, Beginning Reading" by Edmunds et al., (2009). It was clearly cited in the list of references. All the questions used for the pre-test were multiple choice type and the aim was to ascertain whether or not the students' reading abilities were similar. The same TOEFL test was also used in the post-test to check the enhancement, if any, in the students' reading comprehension skills. Each test contained ten questions and no modifications were made in the original test. The test checks some reading strategies in the students' comprehension including the meaning of certain vocabulary, the topic of a paragraph, detailed information, referent of a pronoun, comprehending the inference of a paragraph, the synonyms of a word, summary of a paragraph, inclusion of a sentence inside a paragraph, and summarizing the whole text in a few sentences. All the participants had to take reading exams at the beginning of the term. The assessments were designed to test students' reading comprehension and ensure that the two groups were taught at the same level of understanding. Moreover, Beyer's (1987) metacognitive strategy questionnaire was employed in this study to assess metacognitive methods by employing the four-point Likert Scale (Never, Rarely, Often, and Always numerically converted to 1, 2, 3, 4 to quantify the results) for responses. The questionnaire is designed to obtain data on how students plan, monitor, and analyze their own progress while they learn a new language. As part of the pilot study, the questionnaire was administered to twelve students who shared demographics with the sample but were not included in the final survey. The reliability of the questionnaire used to assess metacognitive strategy was determined to be 0.85%. The questionnaire responses were interpreted using the \ proposed guide to determine their awareness of metacognitive <br><br>