The impact of metacognitive strategy training and critical thinking awareness-raising on reading comprehension

The present quasi-experimental research aimed to examine the differential effect of metacognitive strategy training and critical thinking awareness-raising on EFL learners' reading comprehension of general reading (GR), cause and effect (CE), and argumentative (ARG) texts. The study set to investigate the extent to which raising Iranian EFL learners' awareness of critical thinking skills and three sets of metacognitive reading strategies including global, problem-solving, and support may influence the three groups of participants' reading comprehension. To this end, a purposeful sample of 54 intermediate male Iranian EFL learners attending three classes was recruited from a pool of 85 English learners and was randomly assigned as two experimental groups receiving metacognitive training (MCG) and critical thinking awareness-raising (CTG) and a control group (CG). The research data were gleaned using a researcher-made piloted 54-itme reading comprehension test. The results of the paired sample t-test analyses demonstrated that both MCG and CTG made significant improvements in comprehending GR and ARG texts from the pre-test to the post-test and that both outperformed the CG in comprehending GR and ARG post-tests. With regard to CE comprehension, the only significant difference was observed between the MCG and the CG. The findings offer a number of pedagogical implications.