Iranian Male and Female EFL learners’ Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies: Links to Their Reading Comprehension Performance

Reading comprehension is a fundamental language skill for many EFL learners. This study was conducted to compare Iranian male and female EFL learners' tripartite reading strategy use, Problem Solving Reading Strategies (PSRSs), Global Reading Strategies (GRSs), and Support Reading strategies (SRSs), and their relationship to their reading comprehension. To serve the purpose, 80 undergraduate EFL learners, 40 females and 40 males, majoring in English Language Teaching (ELT) and English Translation (ET) at Islamic Azad University-Tabriz were selected randomly. The research variables were measured based on the participants’ performance on the reading section of the PET test and the Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategy Inventory (MARSI) (Mokhtari & Reichard, 2002). The research data were analysed through Independent Samples T-test and a Standard Multiple Regression (MR) analysis. The results revealed significant differences between male and female participants in terms of their reading comprehension and perceived use of PSRSs. It was also exhibited that for male participants, only SRSs were the statistically significant predictor of males’ reading comprehension while for females it was the PSRSs that made significant contribution to explain reading comprehension. The gender variation in reading comprehension, reading strategies and the correlational pattern between these two variables exists. Such variations have to be addressed in the process of teaching and suggestions will be made as how teacher trainers, syllabus designers, and individual university students majoring in English Language Teaching (ELT) and English Translation (ET) can apply the findings to promote their outcome.