Students? usage of reading strategies in the faculty of education

The purpose of this study is to identify frequency of the reading strategies usage that the college students use while they are reading the academic materials and to examine these strategies according to some variables. The sample of the study consists of 230 first and fourth class college students attending the four separate departments of the Faculty of Education in Pamukkale University. The instrument used was developed by Taraban and his colleagues (2004) called Metacognitive Reading Strategies Questionnaire (MRSQ). The data has been analyzed by using the techniques such as mean, standard deviation, the t-test, one way ANOVA and correlation. The following results have been reached according to the findings:1. The frequency level of reading strategies that the students use was found ?I often use? level for the whole instrument and its two dimension.2. According to gender, there is no significant difference on the analytic strategies dimension but there is a significant difference on the pragmatic strategies dimension on behalf of girls.3. According to departments, there is no significant difference on the analytic strategies dimension but there is a significant difference on the pragmatic strategies dimension. Students on Turkish Education Department indicate less usage of pragmatic strategies.4. According to the number of books that the students read in a year, there is a significant difference on the analytic strategies dimension but there is no significant difference on the pragmatic strategies dimension. Students who read 6 or 20 books in a year use more analytic strategies than the students who read 1 or 5 books in a year.5. According to grade, parents? education, parents? occupation, high school and exam type, there is no significant difference on both dimensions.6. There is a significant positive relationship between the reading strategies usage and academic success.KEY WORDS: reading, reading comprehension strategies, metacognition, metacognitive reading strategies