Gender Variations In EFL Secondary School Student’s Metacognitive Online Reading Strategies, Self-Reported Reading Capability and English Reading Proficiency

Abstract

The employment of metacognitive strategies by ESL students in offline reading situations has been the subject of extensive earlier research. However, relatively few of these studies have tied these strategies to the context of gender, particularly among EFL students while reading English texts online. Therefore, this study aimed to investigate gender differences in the use of metacognitive strategies among Indonesian secondary school students of English as a foreign language concerning their capability to read online and their level of English proficiency. This research used quantitative methods in this study, especially comparative design. The total respondents were 100, consisting of fifty female and fifty male students from one of Malang’s secondary schools. This research adopted the questionnaire OSORS (Online Survey of Reading Strategies) developed by Mokhtari and Sheorey (2002). The purpose of the questionnaire is to measure the reading strategies used by second or foreign-language students; the OSORS questionnaire contained 34 items divided into three categories: Global Reading Strategies, Problem-Solving Strategies, and Support Strategies. A self evaluated online reading ability question and a reading-focused English language test were used to collect the data. There are 50 items in the English reading test. The data were examined with an independent sample t-test, Pearson correlations, and simple and multiple linear regressions. This study showed no significant difference between male and female students using metacognitive strategies, online self-reported reading capability, and English reading proficiency. Global reading strategies have a significant relationship with online English reading proficiency. Female students use metacognitive strategies more frequently overall and by specific categories. They are also better at online reading capability, while male students have an advantage in general English reading proficiency. The findings of the study hold pedagogic implications for language teaching and learning.