An Empirical Study Of University English Majors' Metacognitive Strategy Use

Metacognition and metacognitive strategies have attracted considerable attention from both researchers and educationalists in recent years, and they serve as the point of departure for the current study. Metacognition refers to the knowledge and regulation of one's cognitive process, and metacognitive strategies involve thinking and actions learners use to control or regulate their cognition and learning process. The current study investigated one category of language learning strategies — metacognitive strategies — used by Chinese EFL learners from Foreign Languages School of Shandong University and the relationship between metacognitive strategy preferences and various variables, including gender, successful and unsuccessful learners, and English proficiency. A total of 140 junior English majors from Foreign Languages School of Shandong University participated in this study. Oxford's (1990) Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) was utilized to measure metacognitive strategy preferences, while the results of Test for English Majors (TEM 4) were adopted as a measurement of English proficiency. Descriptive analysis is employed to determine the frequency of metacognitive strategy preferences. T-test is conducted to examine the differences in the use of metacognitive strategies between males and females, and between successful and unsuccessful learners, Pearson correlation is performed to examine the relationship between metacognitive strategy preferences and English proficiency. Results of the analysis reveal the findings as the following: (1) the mean frequency of metacognitive strategy preferences by EFL learners from Shandong University is 3.54, which is within the range of high level of learning strategy use (3.50-5.00), but the mean is relatively low in this scope, (2) there is no significant difference in the use of metacognitive strategies in terms of gender,(3) significant differences do exist in the use of metacognitive strategies between successful and unsuccessful learners. The findings also indicate that there is significant correlation between English proficiency and metacognitive strategy preferences (r^.07), accounting for 7% of the variation in TEM 4 scores. Results of the current study suggest that there is a need to carry out further research or. metacognitive strategies and further research to identify other factors that may account for the variation in English proficiency.This thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter one introduces the present situation of the current research field and the theoretical background. Purposes of the research and significance of the study are discussed in chapter one as well. Chapter two reviews the relevant literature on language learning strategies and metacognitive strategies in recent years, with special emphasis on metacognition, the definition ana classification of metacognitive strategies and studies on metacognitive strategies. Chapter three is concerned with the methodology of the curreiu research study. Chapter four presents the results and discussion based on data analysis, and collected data is analyzed by descriptive analysis, T-test, and Pearson correlation analysis. Finally, chapter five comes up with some pedagogical implications and concludes the present thesis.