An Empirical Study On Metacognitive Awareness Of Reading Strategies Of Non-English Majors

Goodman (1967) claims that reading is a psycholinguistic guessing game. Many researchers have proved that proficiency in a foreign language may be more closely associated with foreign language reading ability. For a long time, reading lesson has been the most important subject in English teaching in China. Reading lesson takes up more time in secondary schools and universities, and even the curriculum design and selection of materials is of great concern. In fact, there are still some issues in reading teaching. A more prominent issue is the training activities in reading class are still knowledge-based language learning. Recent trends within the domain of reading comprehension have led to an increasing emphasis on the role of metacognitive awareness of one's cognitive and motivational processes while reading. Since most of the empirical studies on metacognitive awareness are conducted in foreign contexts, the validity of research results has not been testified in Chinese counterparts. Therefore, it is of theoretical and practical significance to conduct reading strategies research within the framework of metacognitive awareness.The thesis reports on an empirical study of 78 non-English majors'metacognitive awareness of reading strategies to explore their current situation of metacognitive awareness and perceived use of reading strategies by conducting the Survey of Reading Strategies (SORS). SPSS 17.0 is employed to analyze the research data. The research questions are as follows: (1).What is the current situation of metacognitive awareness and perceived use of reading strategies in a sample of 78 subjects? (2).What types of metacognitive reading strategy do male and female subjects report using while reading? The author checks to see whether male and female subjects show a significant difference in their metacognitive awareness. (3).What types of metacognitive reading strategy do high and low achievers report using while reading? The author checks to see whether high and low achievers show a significant difference in metacognitive awareness. (4). How close is the relationship between the subjects'beginning time for learning English and their scores on metacognitive awareness? Is this relationship significant? Is it positive or negative?The quantitative analysis indicated that of the three categories of reading strategies, subjects used Problem Solving Strategies the most frequently, Global Reading Strategies the second and Support Strategies the least. The one-sample t-test analysis indicated that the scores on metacognitive awareness (M=3.33) was significant lower at p<.05 level than the goal (Test Value) of 4.5. It could be inferred that subjects'metacognitive awareness needed to be further developed. Research subjects were classified by gender and by their scores on the National English Matriculation Test. Independent–samples t-test indicated that male subjects reported using Global Reading Strategies and Support Strategies more frequently, while female subjects tended to use Problem Solving Strategies frequently. The means of them on metacognitive awareness did not differ significantly at the p<.05 level. High achievers use reading strategies more frequently than low achievers, and the means did differ significantly at the p<.05 level. The correlation analysis indicated that the subjects'beginning time for learning English tended to be positively correlated with their metacognitive awareness (r=.239, p=.035 < .05). It could be inferred that the earlier the subjects began to study English, the more likely they were to obtain higher stores on metacognitive awareness.