Cognitive and metacognitive strategies employed by Iranian and Turkish EFL readers

Abstract

This study focused on cognitive and metacognitive reading strategies and aimed to find outthe relationship and differences between two groups of participants’ reports on the use ofcognitive and metacognitive reading strategies at English Language Teaching Departments ofÇanakkale Onsekiz Mart University, Çukurova University, Erciyes University, and GaziUniversity in Turkey; and Marand University, Tehran University, and Tehran AzadUniversity in Iran. The study firstly investigated how frequently advanced level languagestudents were using cognitive and metacognitive reading strategies, secondly it revealed therelationship between the participants’ use of cognitive and metacognitive reading strategies.Moreover, it investigated gender differences among groups in terms of using strategies. Thedata were collected by means of questionnaires which were delivered participants in the fallsemester of 2009-2010 academic year. The results indicated significant differences amonggroups in terms of frequency use of cognitive and metacognitive strategies indicating theimpact of culture on employing strategies.