GENDER DIFFERENCES IN THE USE OF METACOGNITIVE AND COGNITIVE STRATEGIES IN AN ENGLISH READING COMPREHENSION TEST

Abstract

The objectives of this study were to investigate the differences in the use of test taking strategies, cognitive and metacognitive strategies between perceived and actual use strategies in testing conditions, and to investigate gender differences in the use of cognitive and metacognitive strategies in perceived strategies and in actual use strategies in an English reading comprehension test. The participants were 250 Grade 10 Thai students (125 males, 125 females). The research instruments consisted of strategy questionnaires (i.e. a perceived strategy questionnaire, and an actual use strategy questionnaire), and an English reading comprehension test. The data collection procedure consisted of the following stages. First, the participants were asked to complete the perceived strategy questionnaire. Two weeks later, they were asked to take the English reading comprehension test. After the participants finished the test, they immediately answered the actual use strategy questionnaire. Forty participants (20 males, 20 females) from the samples were selected for retrospective verbal reports. The data were analyzed by quantitative and qualitative approaches. The quantitative approach was MANOVAs, and the qualitative approach was content analysis of verbal protocols. The findings were as follows. First, there were no statistically significant differences in the use of test taking strategies, cognitive and metacognitive strategies between perceived strategies and actual use strategies in testing conditions. Second, there were gender differences in the use of cognitive and metacognitive strategies in perceived strategies. That is, females reported more frequent use of cognitive strategies than males did, while there were no statistically significant differences between males and females for metacognitive strategies. Third, there were no gender differences in the use of cognitive and metacognitive strategies in actual use in testing conditions. Finally, the verbal report analysis showed that males and females used a wide range of strategies. Generally, grade 10 students did not use strategies differently. These findings could suggest that, first, they may not have been exposed to many types of reading tasks or tests. In addition, the findings indicate that males and females may not affect the way students actually used cognitive and metacognitive strategies in reading. This may be due to the same reading ability as well as English reading instruction.