Impact of Metacognitive Strategies Instruction on Secondary School Students' Reading Anxieties

Abstract

Although reading is the skill that is most used by students in their personal development, reading education does not produce the desired outcomes due to the multiplicity of variables that shape the skill of reading. One of these variables is reading anxiety. In order to prevent reading anxiety from affecting students' competence in reading comprehension, firstly, the levels of reading anxiety experienced by students as well as the causes of reading anxiety should be examined. It is necessary to enhance students' levels of awareness about their own reading processes, before starting the activities to eliminate reading anxiety. Metacognitive strategies can be used in this process of awareness-raising. Departing from this point, the aim of this research was to determine the impact of metacognitive strategies instruction upon students' reading anxieties. In the research, the quasi-experimental method with pretest-posttest, and control group was employed. The study group of the research consisted of six-grade students attending a public secondary school in Ankara. The Reading Anxiety Scale for Secondary School Students (RASS) was employed to collect the data. It is concluded, based on research findings, that making use of metacognitive strategies in reading education has a positive impact on reducing levels of reading anxiety among secondary school students.