The Relationship Between Motivational Orientations and Metacognitive Awareness Among Iranian University EFL Learners

Teachers nowadays are faced with classes full of students who approach them with varying levels of knowledge about their learning. Some students are active and self-directed, while others may lack the ability to regulate their learning properly. In essence, teachers tend to be faced with classrooms with various levels of metacognitive skills (Young & Fry, 2012). Metacognitive knowledge consists of knowledge concerning oneself as a learner and the aspects which might affect his/her performance, knowledge about strategies, and knowledge about at the time and reason for use of strategies. Metacognitive awareness is the observation of one’s cognition and includes planning actions, awareness of comprehension and task performance, and assessment of the effectiveness of monitoring methods and strategies (Dörnyei, 1998). Motivation is the other important value of this study which is needed along with learners’ cognitive and metacognitive abilities. Therefore, given the importance of metacognitive awareness and motivational orientations, this study was an attempt to investigate the relationship between motivation and metacognitive skills in learners’ overall language learning. The participants of this study were 40 students of EFL learners, from both male and female genders, at Aliabad Katul Islamic Azad University, Golestan province, Iran. To choose the participants the convenience sampling were used, and in order to collect data, two questionnaires were used, namely Shraw and Dennison’s (1994) Metacognitive Awareness Inventory, and Noels, Pelletier, Clement, and Vallerand’s (2000) Motivational Questionnaire. The results of the Pearson Correlation revealed t positive but not statistically significant relationship between the two variables. The results of this study provide some implications for the hypothesized links between motivational orientations and metacognitive awareness.

کلیدواژه ها:

Amotivation ، Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation ، Metacognitive Awareness