Developing a Learner Autonomy Questionnaire in English as a Foreign Language Reading Comprehension

There is not a widespread agreement on the operational definition of the construct of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) autonomy in reading comprehension (RC) because there is not an established tool to quantitatively describe its proportion. Therefore, the current investigation intends to design a learner autonomy questionnaire in reading comprehension and undertake its validation; the proposed items are context-specific. In this study, consultation with the relevant literature and the views of EFL experts provided the researchers with invaluable insights to construct a five-component-model for the definition of autonomy in EFL RC. Both exploratory and confirmatory data analysis procedures were utilized to check the validity and reliability of the contextualized items in the proposed model. The findings put forth new insights for the practitioners, curriculum developers, and EFL teachers to make students autonomous in reading comprehension skills. The results are also promising in motivating the at-risk students to actively develop reading comprehension skills in the reading classes.