THE INFLUENCE OF TEACHING METACOGNITIVE READING STRATEGIES ON THE READING SELF-EFFICACY BELIEFS OF IRANIAN EFL LEARNERS: AN EXPERIMENTAL STUDY

1. IntroductionReading is a complicated cognitive activity which is vital to the obtaining of information (Alfassi, 2004). Reading strategies have attracted the researchers' attention about how readers interact with a written text and how these strategies influence the comprehension of a text. Research shows that readers utilize a wide range of strategies which help them with the storage, acquisition, and retrieval of information (Rigney, 1978). Reading strategies show how readers understand a task, how they perceive what they read, and what they do when they do not comprehend a text. In summary, such strategies are the processes which are used by the readers to increase their reading comprehension ability and to tackle comprehension problems.Metacognitive reading strategies are the strategies which are specific to reading and can be classified as: monitoring, evaluating, and planning strategies (Israel, 2007). Planning strategies are utilized before reading. They prepare readers by activating their background knowledge (Israel, 2007). Similarly, previewing a picture, a title, or a heading can help readers to understand a text. Readers can also preview the information in the passage and they can notice the structure (Paris, Wasik, & Turner, 1991). Another instance of planning strategy is setting the purpose for reading (Paris, Wasik, & Turner, 1991; Pressley, 2002). Monitoring strategies are used while reading a text. Examples of monitoring strategies include understanding vocabulary, summarizing, self-questioning, and inferring the main idea of each paragraph (Israel, 2007). Readers might recognize the key words in a text and focus on them. Ignoring the unimportant parts of a text and emphasizing the important parts can also be considered as a monitoring strategy (Hudson, 2007). Evaluating strategies are used after reading a text. For instance, readers might think about how to use what they have read in other situations. To put it in a nutshell, metacognitive reading strategies can be classified as planning strategies (pre-reading strategies), monitoring strategies (while-reading strategies), and evaluating strategies (post-reading strategies). There are several factors which affect reading comprehension. Researchers believe that some learners are fast - achievers in learning a language while some learners achieve the same level of ability in a longer span of time. Some learners have some specific characteristics which help them to be more successful than others. One significant factor which influence the reading performance of learners is their reading self-efficacy beliefs.2. Review of literatureReading is regarded as an important skill because is it a major source of language input (Ediger, 2001), therefore it is vital that students improve their reading comprehension ability. Reading self-efficacy beliefs mediate the role of learners' experiences and backgrounds with reading on students' reading performance. It has been found that students with higher self-efficacy beliefs have a better reading performance in comparison with others (Chapman & Tummer, 2003). According to Paris & Oka (1986), reading self-efficacy is closely related to reading performance.2. 1 Self-efficacy beliefsSelf-efficacy is an issue which was first proposed by Bandura (1977). Then in 1986, Bandura put this construct in a socio-cognitive theory of human behavior. This theory assumes that individuals are able to think about their actions in order to shape their environment instead of reacting passively. Social-cognitive theory also states that human behavior is goal-oriented. It assumes a meta-cognitive activity which means that humans are able to analyze their own behavior through controlling the conditions in their environment. He believed that self-efficacy is what people believe about their abilities to control the events which might affect their lives and also the abilities which they have in order to put together the cognitive resources, motivation, and other actions which are essential in controlling task demands (Bandura, 1989). …