The Impact of Metamemory on the EFL Students` Achievement at Taif University

Abstract

The purpose of the current research is to scrutinize the relationship between metamemory and EFL learners` achievement. The participants were 250 first year university students who were chosen from a large sample of the preparatory year Science and Humanities streams at Taif University, Taif, Saudi Arabia. The objective of the research is twofold: (a) to assess whether metamemory can predict English language skills achievement (listening, speaking, reading, and writing, and (b) to assess if there exist notable discrepancies between male and female students and the different academic streams (the science stream and the humanities stream) on the metamemory factors. Students` metamemory was measured by the Metamemory questionnaire (SMSQ) of Tonkovic and Vranic (2011). The results of this study show that metamemory is a good predictor of the EFL students` language learning skills achievement. It also indicates that there are differences between male and female students on the metamemory factors in favor of females. Furthermore, the findings reaffirm that there are differences between the academic streams, in favor of the science stream.