Undergraduate students' use of metacognitive strategies while reading

The purpose of this study was to examine the perceived use of metacognitive strategies during reading by undergraduate students. Survey method was used in the current study. A total number of 236 students studying at the Primary Education and Social Studies Teaching Departments at Faculty of Education and Turkish Language and Literature and Sociology Departments at the Faculty of Literature at Bartın University during 2014-2015 academic year made up the sample group of the study. Among the participating students, 99 of them were studying at the Faculty of Eduation whilst 137 of them were studying at the Faculty of Literature. And of these 236 students, 141 of them were freshmen whilst 95 of them were senior. The data collection tools used in this study were Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory (MARSI) and two Reading Comprehension Tests- informative and narrative texts. SPSS 22.00 package programme was used in analyzing the collected data. Overall strategy use among the participating students both for the whole Inventory and the sub-scales of the inventory was found as "excellent". Based on the research questions of the study, whether there was a significant difference among students' perceived use of strategies in reading based on gender, grade, faculty and department was investigated. The results indicated that there was a statistically significant difference based on gender, in favor of girls. Similarly, a statistically significance difference was found among freshmen and senior students, in favor of senior students. The analyses conducted to investigate in which sub-scales the difference between girls-boys arose revealed that the difference among girls and boys occurred in Global Reading Strategies and Support Reading Strategies. This difference between girls and boys was found to be in Global Reading Strategies and Support Reading Strategies in Primary Education Department and in Global Reading Strategies in Turkish Language and Literature Department. Another finding of the study was that there was a statistically significant grade difference in the use of Global Reading Strategies and Support Reading Strategies in favor of senior students. Another finding was that as the narrative reading comprehension text increased, so did the strategy use in overall scale as well as in Global Reading Strategies and Problem Solving Strategies sub-scales. In order to investigate whether students receive any education on the use of metacognitive strategies during the four-year education, the courses and the course contents of the four departments in the study were examined. It was found that in Primary Education and Social Studies Education course contents the use of metacognitive strategies was included whilst in Turkish Language and Literature and Sociology course contents did not include anything related to teaching the use of strategies. In the light of the findings in this study, it can be suggested that a reading strategies training considering the gender differences in the use of metacognitive strategies in reading can be provided to students. In addition, based on the grade difference between freshmen and senior students, in favor of senior students, reading and learning strategies training could be provided for students during undergraduate education.