On the use of metacognitive strategies by Iranian EFL learners in doing various reading tasks across different proficiency levels

This paper was an attempt to investigate Iranian EFL learners’ metacognitive strategy choice. To achieve this, two research questions were formulated. The first one was to see whether there is any significant difference between the participants’ language proficiency level and their metacognitive strategy choice in doing four reading tasks (scanning, true-false, outlining, and sentence-completion). And the second question concerned the relationship between the participants’ metacognitive strategy choice and their performances on the four reading tasks studied in this project. To this end, 130 female and male university students majoring in English at various levels took the sample version of the IELTS General Training Reading Module, the structure and written section of a TOEFL test, and the metacognitive strategy questionnaire (MSQ). The statistical analyses of the data demonstrated that (a) there was statistically significant difference among the participants of various proficiency levels in their choice of metacognitive strategies due to the impact of language proficiency level, (b) there was a significant positive relationship between the participants’ performances on four reading tasks and their metacognitive strategy choice, except for the relationship between scanning task and evaluating strategies. Implications of the study are discussed.