Cognitive strategies in the reading comprehension improvement

Abstract

The objective of this research was to determine the effectiveness of the use of cognitive strategies to improve the reading comprehension of university students. Due to the low level of the students, the researcher proposed to carry out a research with quantitative methodology with a quasi-experimental design. This process involved steps such as taking a standardized exam such as the FCE level B2. After this, she planned a series of lesson plans that focused on applying four cognitive strategies such as skimming, scanning, summarizing, and questioning. The population object of this research was made up of 24 students who made up the comparison group and the experimental group. The two groups took the initial test; However, only the experimental group attended the intervention classes. After the intervention period, the students took the final test and these results were statistically analyzed. At the beginning there were no differences between the means of the study groups; but in the end, the result of the experimental group was higher than that of the comparison group. Therefore, it is concluded that the use of cognitive strategies is effective in improving students' reading comprehension.