The cognitive and metacognition reading strategies of foundation course students in teacher education institute in Malaysia

Abstract

This study was carried out to investigate the use of cognitive and meta cognitive strategies for 3rd semester students majoring in English in reading an English text. The respondents were 57 students from one of the Teachers Education Institute in Malaysia. The study also examined the differences between meta cognitive reading strategies adopted by students across demographic factor, and significant relationship between cognitive reading strategies with demographic factor namely former type of school attended. The result of the study showed that students employed high level of cognitive reading strategies (3.59) but medium users of meta cognitive reading strategies (3.56). Students exploited problem solving (3.77), the most amongst the other categories of the meta cognitive strategies. Rereading, guessing, contextualizing, visualizing and using dictionary were the most exploited strategies in both cognitive and meta cognitive strategies. Strategies which are greatly needed at tertiary level such as the ability to differentiate between facts and opinions, thinking about topics that cover both sides of the issue and reflecting on what was being read were not too popular. The study also confirmed the hypotheses that there was no significant difference between meta cognitive strategies with demographic factor and there was also no significant relationship between cognitive strategies and demographic factor namely former school type. The results would benefit both students and lecturers as it would be the focus in monitoring and evaluating students' own reading strategies particularly meta cognitive strategies and this would pave the way to a better reading comprehension.