The Relationship between Male Dentistry Students' Metacognitive Awareness and Listening Performance

Table of contents

1. Introduction

2. Research question and hypothesis

3. Methodology
3.1 Participants
3.2 Research Design
3.3. The Metacognitive Awareness Listening Questionnaire (MALQ)
3.4 Listening Section of the final exam
3.5. Data Collection Procedures
3.6. Data Analysis

4. Result
4.1 Quantitative data results:

5. Discussion

6. Conclusion

7. References

1. Introduction

Learning languages is the process of dealing with 4 skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing and in order learns to all skills perfectly we should use proper learning/teaching strategies. Among these four skills, listening is the skill of understanding spoken language and it is an important skill; perform as a reflection of other life activities (Lindsay and Knight, 2006). In another view according to Bueno et al. (2006), listening is a psychological phenomenon, happens in people minds. It acts as a social phenomenon in order to scaffolding the elements. Listening is an essential skill which develops faster than speaking and often affects the development of reading and writing abilities in learning a new language (TafarojiYeganeh, 2013). Listening is an important factor in bonding our ideas to one another and it is the recognition (being listen to) in the response from another person that makes our experience Meaningful (Nichos, 2009).

Learning the second language is a complex process (Harputlu, 2014). Some learners fulfill this task properly and some fail even they follow the same rules because learners have different ways of learning or individual differences affect the process of learning (Harputlu, 2014). Learning strategies of the L2 learning spotlighted since the mid-1970s and defined as techniques for understanding, remembering, and using information that is intentionally used and consciously controlled by the learner (Rahimi & Katal, 2012). This consciousness or awareness in the process of listening is related to the way listeners think about the listening process; plan, monitor, and evaluate the listening task; and how do listen (Rahimi & Abedi 2014). As listening presses mostly related to our mind and other similar factors, we should talk about the term Metacognitive knowledge. According to Flavell (1979), it refers to the knowledge of persons` related to personal characteristics, task characteristics, and available strategies in a learning situation which could act as a positive component and facilitated the learning or as a negative point and make inhibition and also this knowledge include learners ability to connect the learning task required strategies (Vandergrift & Goh, 2012). It is a bridge between areas, e.g., between decision making and memory, between learning and motivation, and between learning and cognitive development (Hoare, 2011).

The present study intends to explore the relationship between the Metacognitive awareness and EFL learner’s listening performance. Although there are some studies on Metacognition and listening, it seems that there is not enough attention to the self-regulation learning and listening. Most of the learners facing with problems feel demotivated in listening related to a wrong idea about listening.

2. Research question and hypothesis

The main purpose of the study is to investigate the relationships between the Metacognitive awareness, and the listening proficiency of EFL students.

Is there any relationship between Metacognitive awareness and Iranian male EFL learners listening performance?

H0: there is no relationship between Metacognitive awareness and Iranian male EFL learners listening performance.

3. Methodology

3.1 Participants

The target population of the study was 50 male Dentistry students at upper intermediate and advanced proficiency language level at UMSU that participated in this study in the spring and summer term of 2017. All of the participants had received English in school as a compulsory course in primary and secondary school before starting their voluntary attending in English language centers, and had upper intermediate and advanced language certificates with more than 3 years language experience from different languages institutes confirmed by Iranian Ministry of Education. Their age ranged from 18 to 22, selected randomly and voluntarily to complete the questionnaire. The participants were self-selected and research was focused only on male gender.

3.2 Research Design

This study is based on Correlation coefficient which measures the extent to which two variables tend to change together. The coefficient describes both the strength and the direction of the relationship and Pearson product moment correlation intended to evaluate the linear relationship between two continuous variables. A relationship is linear when a change in one variable is associated with a proportional change in the other variable. The data were collected using two separate instruments. The research was designed primarily to collect quantitative data to be analyzed. In order to collect the required data, two scales a listening proficiency test were administered in this study: Metacognitive Awareness Listening Questionnaire (MALQ) as one variable, and the listening section of the final exam as the other variable. In addition, the scales included a demographic information section which contained questions concerning students’ personal information such as age.

3.3. The Metacognitive Awareness Listening Questionnaire (MALQ)

The Metacognitive Awareness Listening Questionnaire developed by Vandergrift, Goh, Mareschal, Tafaghodtari (2006) consists of 21 items. The items are rated on a six-point Likert scale rating from 1 (strongly disagree) to 6 (strongly agree). It evaluates L2 learners’ “Metacognitive awareness concerning their perceived use of strategies while listening to oral texts” (Goh & Hu, 2014, p. 260). It further assesses their perceptions with regard to the difficulty of listening skill and their self-efficacy in it. Five subscales are included in the questionnaire, namely problem-solving, planning and evaluation, mental translation, directed attention, and person knowledge. The first subscale is planning and evaluation that contains items about how learners plan ahead for listening and evaluate the outcome of their listening efforts (items 1, 10, 14, 20 & 21). The second subscale is problem-solving which consists of items on how learners monitor comprehension and solve difficulties as they arise (items 5, 7, 9, 13, 17 & 19). The third subscale of the questionnaire directed attention includes items on how learners maintain their attention and stay on task during listening (items 2, 6, 12 & 16). The fourth subscale, mental translation, comprises items indicating whether listeners use mental translation strategies as they listen (items 4, 11 & 18). Finally, person knowledge, the fifth subscale, contains items representing listeners’ perceptions about the difficulty presented by L2 listening and their self-efficacy in L2 listening (items 3, 8 & 15).Items 3, 8 and 16 were stated negatively so that the participants would not indicate a favorable attitude towards marking only one side of the scale. Items 4, 11 and 18 represent the mental translation strategies, which the learners should avoid to become efficient listeners. Thus, these six items were reverse coded for overall interpretation of scores. The questionnaire was conducted in its original form. The reliability coefficient of MALQ calculated in this study was .879. The coefficients for each subscale were appeared to be .756 for problem-solving, .559 for planning and evaluation, .767 for mental translation, .536 for directed attention, and .809 for person knowledge.

MALQ-items are randomly interwoven with others; some are negatively worded to avoid learners to mark only one side of the rating scale (mental translation); the internal reliability of the MALQ (Cronbach’s alphas) for the items was respectable, ranging from .68 to .78 (Vandergrift, 2006, as cited in Fernandez 2013). MALQ was useful to assess the extent to which language learners are aware of and can regulate the process of L2 listening comprehension; it is also intended to serve as a self-assessment instrument. Learners themselves can use it to appraise the awareness of the listening process as well as to reflect on their use of strategy when listening to texts in the L2. Taking the reverse coding into consideration, the maximum score of the Metacognitive awareness listening questionnaire is 126 points when every item is answered with ‘strongly agree’; in turn, the minimum score is 21 points when the respondents answer with ‘strongly disagree.

3.4 Listening Section of the final exam

The second instrument used in this study was the learners’ English listening section of the final exam. These students’ classroom experiences and knowledge was based on Top Notch and Summit course Level by Pearson Longman press. It was used to determine the participants’ listening ability according to the own levels in English classes. It consisted of 10 multiple-choice (3 options) questions. Students had listened to a scientist who was talking about whales and supposed to choose the correct answer. At first, they had 90 seconds to study the sentences. Then they listened to the podcast for about 7 minutes. They listened to the program for the second time to correct or finish their work. Finally, they had 90 seconds to finalize their answers.

Listening was about scientist who is talking about whales. There was a research team collecting information about the whale's tune and sounds and songs for long period of time and compared it with new data and considered the difference between male and female voices and the way they changed it during the time and the voices conceived as a harmonic, like a piece of music. The test included general listening and multiple choice questions. Total of raw points was (min=0, max=20) and each question had 2 points which converted into a scaled score of 0 to 20.The total number of the final examination was 100 and it contained 5 parts: Reading, writing, speaking (as an interview), and listening and students class activities during the term. Each part assigned score was 20.

3.5. Data Collection Procedures

The teacher explicitly explains the Metacognitive listening methodology to the students in class instruction. Metacognitive processes are typically predicting, planning, monitoring, evaluating and problem-solving (Goh, 2008). The investigation was conducted five intact classes at the same level. At first, the teacher informed the students about the purpose and procedure of the study. It was also emphasized that their participation would be anonymous and confidential. Then, the listening section of the exam was played to the participants. It took about 15 minutes to finish answering the questions. Immediately after the exam, the MALQ were administered. It took almost 10 minutes to complete them.

3.6. Data Analysis

Quantitative data obtained from the instruments were analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS), Microsoft excel. The questionnaire was analyzed by grouping items to the 5 categories (predicting, planning, monitoring, evaluating and problem-solving). The subjects’ responses to each item were counted. Then each item was considered within the group of items that address a specific category. Finally, the means of all the subjects’ responses to each group of items were calculated. The mean supplies information on the average performance of all the subjects’ Metacognitive strategies and informs the researcher about how subjects as a whole performed. For the research question, in order to find whether there is any significant correlation between listeners’ Metacognitive awareness and their performance on EFL listening comprehension test, Pearson correlation coefficient was performed. All of the assumption of Pearson correlation including continuous variables, related pairs (pair of values include listening and Metacognition), absence of outliers and linearity and homoscedasticity were met.

4. Result

The research question in the study try to explain whether there is a relationship between L2 listening proficiency and total score of MALQ. It further explores the association between L2 listening proficiency and the subscales of MALQ, namely mental translation, person knowledge, problem-solving, planning and evaluation, and directed attention. The minimum and maximum and means and standard deviations for the listening scores, the five MALQ subscales, and the overall MALQ score are presented in the Table1.

Table1 . Descriptive Statistics for Listening Scores, Overall MALQ Scores

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On average, the participants scored 18.10 out of a maximum 20 in the final exam listening test, indicative of their approximately high listening proficiency. The standard deviation of 1.723 indicated that there was not a considerable variability in listening proficiency among the participants. The mean MALQ score was 78.10 on a six-point scale. This showed that the participants reported a high level of strategy use and confidence regarding listening. Of the five MALQ subscales, the participants scored considerably higher for problem solving (M=25.73, SD=2.919), planning and evaluation (M=19.49, SD=2.887), directed attention (M=15.63, SD=2.262), than for person knowledge (M=9.29, SD=2.369) and mental translation (M=8.00, SD=2.638). In order to examine the relationships between the listening scores, the five MALQ subscales, and the overall MALQ score, the Pearson Product-Moment correlation coefficient was calculated. The results are illustrated in the Table 2.

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