English as a Foreign Language Learners’ Major and Meta-cognitive Reading Strategy Use at Al-Balqa Applied University

Abstract

This quantitative study aimed to investigate and compare the use of metacognitive reading Strategies among English as a foreign language students at Al-Balqa Applied University based on their academic field of study. The Survey of Reading Strategies (SORS) (Mokhtari & Sheory, 2002) was the instrument employed. This survey divides the strategies into three categories: global, problem solving and support strategies. The 86 participants are enrolled in different academic fields of study and were classified into two groups: students of the faculties of humanities (39=45.3%) and scientific faculties students (47=54.7%). The participants proved to be high users of the overall strategies (M=3.6023, S.D.=1.3189) and they employed the strategies in the following order: problem solving, support and global. No statistically significant changes were found between the two groups concerning at the significance level of 0.05. The most employed strategy by the humanities students was the support strategy “I go back and forth in the text to find relationships among ideas in it” (M=4.5385, S.D.=.83661). The scientific faculties students top ranked strategy was problem solving “I read slowly and carefully to make sure I understand what I am reading” (M=4.2128, S.D.=0.8831). The finding obtained would help EFL curricula planners and teachers to deepen their understanding of the learners’ reading procedures.