Cambodian EFL Undergraduates’ Metacognitive Reading Strategies Use to Comprehend English Reading Texts
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Abstract
This study examined Cambodian university students’ self-perceived metacognitive strategies for planning, controlling, and improving their reading comprehension when engaging with school-related materials in English. It also explored the potential correlation between these metacognitive strategies and English reading proficiency. Ninety-one juniors at a private university took a multiple-choice reading proficiency test and then completed the Survey of Reading Strategy (SORS) (Mokhtari & Sheorey, 2002). To gain deeper insights, follow-up semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight randomly selected participants from the sample. The descriptive analysis revealed moderate overall strategy utilization, with problem-solving strategies being the most frequently employed. Pearson’s product-moment correlation coefficient indicated a weak but significant relationship between support reading strategy use and reading proficiency scores. The qualitative data from the interviews, elaborated on the statistical findings, demonstrated that the students were aware of some strategies, providing a better understanding of their metacognitive processes.
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