PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS’ METACOGNITIVE READING STRATEGY AWARENESS AND THEIR READING COMPREHENSION PERFORMANCE

Abstract

Although metacognition has been found to boost learners’ language learning, little research has examined whether metacognitive reading strategies (MCRS) improve pre-service teachers’ reading comprehension outcomes. This study investigated Moroccan pre-service teachers’ awareness of MCRS and its relationship with their reading comprehension performance. A total of 180 participants from a public institution in Morocco filled in the Metacognitive Reading Strategy Questionnaire (MRSQ) and took a reading comprehension test. Mean scores were analysed to determine the frequency of metacognitive reading strategy awareness, and the Pearson product moment correlation coefficient was employed to identify the correlation between the two variables. Results indicated that pre-service teachers exhibited high awareness of MCRS. However, there was a weak positive correlation between the participants’ knowledge of these strategies and reading comprehension performance, highlighting a gap between knowledge of MCRS and their application in the reading process. This suggests that although pre-service teachers showed heightened awareness of MCRS, they still did not translate this knowledge into practice. The findings indicate the importance of incorporating hands-on activities to help pre-service teachers put their knowledge of MCRS into practice to boost their reading comprehension ability and enable them to transmit their skills to their future learners.