A Study On The Correlation Between Metacognitive Knowledge And English Writing Achievements Among Senior High School Students

Writing is a process for learners to express their ideas on a certain topic,a relatively complex process of language output,and a comprehensive reflection of language.For a long time,how to improve students’ English writing ability is not only an important part but also a major difficulty of English teaching in senior high school.Therefore,how to improve students’ English writing ability has long been the focus of researchers.In the past two decades,a great number of scholars at home and abroad have done extensive research on metacognition in English writing based on cognitive psychology.However,most of the researches focus on how to use metacognitive strategies to improve learners’ English writing ability,and the research on metacognitive knowledge is relatively scarce.At the same time,most of the research participants at home and abroad are college students,and there are still few studies on senior high school students.This study adopts a combination of quantitative and qualitative research methods to make a comprehensive survey of senior high school students’ metacognitive knowledge in English writing,and explores the correlation between students’ metacognitive knowledge and English writing achievement,so as to provide some enlightenment and reference suggestions for teachers’ teaching.Based on the Flavell’s metacognition theory and Piaget’s theory of cognitive development,this study takes 268 Grade Two students from a senior high school in M city as the research objects,and uses questionnaires,English writing test and interview outlines as the research instruments to carry out the survey.The interviewees are 20 students randomly selected from the students who participated in the questionnaire.This study attempts to answer the following two questions:（1）What is the current situation of senior high school students’ metacognitive knowledge in English writing?（2）What is the correlation between senior high school students’ metacognitive knowledge and their English writing achievement?Through the analysis of the collected data by SPSS 26.0,the results are as follows: First,the overall metacognitive knowledge of senior high school students in writing is below the middle level.The task knowledge is at a high level,but the personal knowledge and strategy knowledge are at a low level.Second,there are significant differences in metacognitive knowledge among senior high school students with different writing achievement levels.Students with higher level of metacognitive knowledge have higher writing achievement than those with lower level of it.Third,metacognitive knowledge plays an important role in learners’ English writing.Through the correlation data analysis,there is a positive correlation between senior high school students’ metacognitive knowledge and their English writing achievement.Among them,strategic knowledge has the highest correlation with writing achievement.Among the subcategories of strategic knowledge,planning strategies have the highest correlation with writing achievements,followed by reflective strategies,and monitoring strategies.According to the findings of this study,this thesis puts forward some suggestions for English teachers and senior high school students,hoping that with the joint efforts of teachers and students,senior high school students can fully understand and improve their metacognition level of English writing.At the same time,teachers should adopt corresponding teaching methods to promote students’ English writing learning according to students’ situation.