A Tentative Study of Correlation between Metacognitive Strategies and Reading Anxiety

Through surveying 80 English major sophomores, this study collects the data about the overall situation of English reading anxiety experienced by and reading metacognitive strategies employed by college students. These data processed with the help SPSS16.0, the following results are obtained: Students generally suffer various degrees of anxiety and have significant differences in the anxiety degree; Students have developed different abilities of reading metacognitive strategy use and demonstrate significant differences in this aspect. The study also finds there exists a significant negative correlation between English reading anxiety and reading metacognitive strategies. The inappropriate use of metacognitive strategies aggravates reading anxiety which in turn obstacles the subsequent use of metacognitive strategies and vice versa. Enlightened by the study, teachers can be concerned with both students' reading anxiety and metacognitive strategy use to improve their reading comprehension.