Investigating The Influence of Metacognitive Awareness in Academic Reading

Abstract

Reading is an integral aspect of the educational landscape, embraced by students, academics, and scholars alike in their daily pursuits. Students, in particular, must hone their reading skills to effectively navigate the multitude of texts they encounter during their academic journey. While students are immersed in text daily, the challenge persists in ensuring they truly comprehend what they read. Employing metacognitive reading strategies has proven to be pivotal in elevating reading comprehension. Hence, this quantitative study is done to investigate the influence of metacognitive awareness in academic reading. Specifically, this study is done to explore how learners perceive the use of metacognitive strategies in their academic reading. A purposive sample of 140 participants from a university in Selangor, Malaysia responded to the survey. The instrument used is a 5 Likert-scale survey and is rooted from Mokhtari and Reichard (2002) metacognitive strategies used on reading. The survey has 4 sections. Section A has 3 items on demographic profile. Section B has 13 items on self-monitoring strategies. Section C has 8 items on self-evaluating strategies and section D has 9 items on self-regulation strategies. The findings of the study indicate that there is a high use of metacognitive strategies among the university students. In this context, it suggests that the students are actively engaged in assessing and managing their own learning, which can lead to more effective studying and improved academic performance. This information underscores the importance of fostering metacognitive skills in educational settings to enhance learning outcomes.