Metacognitive Strategy Use for EFL Readers: Differences in Gender and Reading Ability

Using metacognitive strategies to enhance EFL reading comprehension is well-established, but it remains unclear how strategy use may differ according to individual reader characteristics like gender and reading ability. To address this limitation in the literature, 137 Chinese EFL university students completed a reading comprehension task and the Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory (MARSI). The MARSI measured the use of global strategies (for global analysis of a text), problem-solving strategies (to cope with challenging texts), and support strategies (to support comprehension). Results from a within-group analysis of variance showed that the participants used problem-solving strategies with high frequency and used them significantly more than global and support strategies, which were used moderately. Global strategies were used significantly more than support strategies. Results from t-tests showed no differences in strategy use between genders and results from a between-groups analysis of variance showed that high ability readers used significantly fewer support strategies than low ability readers, but the effect size was small. No differences were found among the other strategy types across the ability levels. These findings suggest that gender differences did not affect strategy use and that when reading ability increased, the participants were less reliant on support strategies.