Chapter 4: Toward a Dependable Measure of Metacognitive Reading Strategies with Adva nced L2 Learners

In a preliminary investigation, a metacognitive knowledge test entitled NELSON (Van Gelderen et al., 2003) was used with advanced L2 adult learners of Spanish at a university in the USA in order to examine the relationship between L1 and L2 metacognitive skills, L2 linguistic knowledge, and L2 reading comprehension. Findings revealed no positive relationship for overall metacognitive knowledge and L2 reading comprehension. With the advanced L2 learners, L2 linguistic knowledge seemed to be a more powerful predictor of L2 reading comprehension than metacognitive skills. Given the findings of this preliminary investigation, a follow-up study was conducted with 129 advanced L2 adult learners of Spanish using Mochtari and Reichard’s (2002) Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory (MARSI). Participants read two different authentic texts (a short story and an essay) and completed three different comprehension assessment tasks: written recall, sentence completion items, and multiple choice items for each reading. Regression analysis revealed that certain combinations of metacognitive items on the MARSI positively associate with reading comprehension for specific text types and assessment tasks. For both texts, the same combinations of items provided positive associations for recall but not for sentence completion and multiple choice. Results hold important implications for both instructors and researchers as the MARSI proved to be a dependable measure used with advanced L2 learners. Instructors may want to consider combinations of results when teaching different metacognitive strategies in the classroom. The MARSI questionnaire may also aid instructors to diagnose strengths and weaknesses of individual readers.