Modelling Cognitive and Metacognitive Strategies and Their Relationships to Reading Comprehension Test Performance of Thai High School EFL Learners
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17507/jltr.1703.05Keywords:
metacognitive strategies, cognitive strategies, reading comprehension, Thai high school students, SEMAbstract
Cognitive and metacognitive strategies are crucial for enabling reading comprehension and controlling language processing. This study explored the role of these strategies and their contribution to English reading comprehension test performance, as well as the extent of their relationships in reading comprehension outcomes, using Structural Equation Modelling (SEM). A total of 685 Thai high school students were assessed on a standardised reading comprehension test and a six-point Likert-scale questionnaire designed to measure strategy use. The findings indicated that cognitive and metacognitive strategies were positively related to reading test performance. Cognitive strategies, especially those of retrieval and comprehension, served as basic processes underpinning decoding, integration, and the construction of meaning from text. However, metacognitive strategies exerted significant regulatory influence, with direct effects on reading comprehension and indirect effects via cognitive strategy use. The relationship between retrieval and comprehension also emphasised their interrelated roles as components of strategic reading. Both types of strategy contributed significantly to reading comprehension, but only through language knowledge, with the learning processing model showing incremental improvement in strategy use and apparent individual differences as proficiency grew. These results point to the pedagogical importance of developing strategic awareness and self-regulated learning, as well as providing more explicit strategy instruction, and indicate that future research using longitudinal or mixed-methods designs could provide richer information about how strategies are used differently across contexts, age groups, and more advanced proficiency levels.
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