Measuring Moroccan English Department University Students’ (Meta) Cognitive Awareness and Usage of Reading Strategies

Abstract

Grounded in an exploratory research design, the current study is centrally aimed at gauging the Moroccan English department learners’ awareness and use of cognitive and metacognitive reading strategies (RSs). It seeks to determine the extent to which EFL learners are (meta) cognitively conscious of the use of text-based strategies. To put a bright spotlight on this issue and disclose EFL learners’ dynamic potential pertaining to metacognitive strategy knowledge, a sample of sixty-three (63) EFL learners majoring in English Studies (first-semester) were targeted. The obtained data were gathered by means of the retrospective questionnaire (RQ) and the reading comprehension texts (e.g., narrative, expository). The overall findings manifestly show that Moroccan EFL learners’ (meta) cognitive strategy awareness and usage are characterized by insufficiency. Thus, a range of implied suggestions related to the EFL learners’ reading strategy consciousness and use in academic textual reading are put forward and some encountered research limitations are stated.