A Study Of The Impact Of Metacognition On English Proficiency Of Chinese University Students

Metacognition is generally defined as cognition about cognition, serving as self-directed, executive functions in cognitive activities. Metacognition consists of metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive strategies, and it deals with how the learners use their metacognitive knowledge to manage and control their learning process effectively. So metacogniton is considered by many educators and psychologists as a crucial factor in cognitive learning.However, research on metacognition in second/foreign language research is just at its initial stage. Previous research has investigated the relationship between metacognition and foreign language proficiency only in a qualitatively way such as interview, diary or think-aloud. Thus, the purpose of this study is to explore quantitatively the impact of metacognition on English proficiency of Chinese university students, regarding whether the level of metacognition can lead to variance in foreign language proficiency.Metacognition Inventory and the achievement scores of TEM4 are used in this study as instruments to collect quantitative data. The questionnaire was designed to elicit responses concerning the two components of metacognition. Achievement scores in TEM4 were used to measure the subjects' foreign language proficiency and the subjects were divided into low and high proficient groups based on their TEM4 scores. The quantitative data were then analyzed with Statistical Package for Social Sciencel3.0 (SPSS 13.0) using descriptive statistics, Pearson correlational analysis and independent-samples t-tests.Results indicated that the subjects' metacognition varied across their EFL proficiency levels and there was a significantly positive relationship between metacognition and foreign language proficiency. Metacognitive strategies were more correlated with foreign language proficiency than metacognitive knowledge. Further analysis revealed both groups had a significant variance in the two components of metacognition. In detail, there was a significant variance at the .05 level in two...