Investigating metacognitive reading strategies with mediating effects of students' reading engagement

Abstract

Reading skills play a crucial role in education, yet it is considered as one of the most challenging areas among learners. Prior studies have indicated that a great deal of readers face reading issues and student engagement in reading is at a low level. Wherefore, other studies have demonstrated that metacognitive reading strategies and reading engagement are essential to enhance reading comprehension in reading skills. The present study focused on the metacognitive reading strategies used by readers while reading English academic texts and how these strategies affected their reading engagement. The researcher used Survey of Reading Strategies (SORS) Questionnaires by Mokhtari and Sheorey (2002) to explore the frequent use of metacognitive reading strategies by 146 KDIS students, and Questionnaire Items to Assess the Four Aspects of Engagement by Reeve and Tseng (2011) to investigate their reading engagement. The results showed that global reading strategies affected four aspects of student reading engagement (agentic, behavioral, emotional and cognitive), support reading strategies affected two aspects of student reading engagement (agentic and behavioral) and problem-solving strategies affected only cognitive engagement when students were reading English academic texts. These findings will guide managerial and policy implications for students, instructors and other educational institutions to pay attention to metacognitive reading strategies and reading engagement, which are fundamental in reading skills.