Cognitive and metacognitive learning strategies among Arabic language

students

Ghazali Yusria*, Nik Mohd Rahimib, Parilah M. Shahb and Wan Haslina Wahc

aAcademy of Language Studies, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Malaysia; bFaculty of Education,Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Malaysia; cFaculty of Medicine, Universiti KebangsaanMalaysia, Malaysia

(Received 10 January 2011; final version received 11 January 2011)

This study investigates cognitive and metacognitive strategies in learning oralArabic among students at Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), Malaysia. Theconcept of these strategies was derived from the self-regulated learning frame-work, which consists of five components, namely rehearsal, elaboration,organization, critical thinking, and metacognitive strategies. The purposes ofthis study are to investigate the level of cognitive and metacognitive strategiesused (1) among UiTM students; (2) between students with different priorexperiences, namely, some of them had an experience of 5 years in learning Arabicin secondary school (abbreviated by SWE) and some of them did not have anyexperience at all (abbreviated by SNE); (3) between students of different gender;and (4) between students with the interaction of different gender and priorexperience. The sample of this study consists of 183 students and employs aquestionnaire adapted from the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire(MSLQ). The study revealed that (1) all UiTM students used cognitive andmetacognitive strategies at a moderate level; (2) SWE scored significantly higherthan SNE in all five components of cognitive and metacognitive strategies;(3) females scored significantly higher than males in rehearsal, organization, andmetacognitive strategies; and (4) there were no statistically significant differencesnoted in all components between students with the interaction of prior experienceand gender. This study had some classroom implications. It suggested that someimprovement and changes in learning oral Arabic should be made in terms ofselecting learning materials, implementing oral Arabic activities, and learning tasks,which will stimulate the use of all strategies, as well as conducting proficiency testsinstead of achievement tests. Students should also be exposed to the learningtechniques which used all these strategies extensively and collaborative activitiesmay be carried out among students with mixed prior experience and gender.

Keywords: cognitive strategies; metacognitive strategy; MSLQ; oral Arabiclearning; prior experience; gender; self-regulated learning

Introduction

Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM), Malaysia, offers Arabic as a foreign languagecourse to all first degree students as an elective in order to prepare students withcommunicative competency for their future professional careers. However, the

*Corresponding author. Email: ghazaliy@salam.uitm.edu.my

� 2013 Taylor & Francis

Vol. 21, No. 3, 290–300, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10494820.2011.555840Interactive Learning Environments, 2013

students’ learning background is different from two aspects: prior experience inlearning Arabic and gender. Some of them had an experience of 5 years in learningArabic in secondary school (abbreviated by SWE) while some of them did not haveany experience at all (abbreviated by SNE). There are about 25 students per classduring formal teaching hour whereas mixed ability learners are put in the sameclassroom. A mixed ability classroom is bound to produce some negative effectstoward SNE as proven in a previous study (Ghazali Yusri, Nik Mohd Rahimi, &Parilah, 2010). Besides different prior experiences, gender difference had also beenfound to influence the level of motivation among students (Bembenutty, 2007;Lundeberg & Mohan, 2008; Ray, Garavalia, & Murdock, 2003). These differencesaccording to the causal attribution theory are expected to influence students’self-efficacy to succeed in their learning, (Pintrich & Schunk, 1996).

Self-regulated learning

Self-regulated learning strategies that consist of two main components, namely,motivation and learning strategies have been found to be one of the main factors toensure the success of a learning process (see al-Alwan, 2008; Bail, Zhang, &Tachiyama, 2008; Camahalan, 2006; Kitsantas, Winsler, & Hui, 2008; Olaussen &Braten, 1999; Randi, 2009; Ray et al., 2003; VanZile-Tamsen & Livingston, 1999).Originally, it has a close relationship with some theories such Bandura’s social-cognitive learning theory, Piaget’s theory of regulation and effort, and theory ofVygotsky (Hsu, 1997). Self-regulated learning is defined as a self-directive processand self-beliefs, which control motivation and learning strategies that enable learnersto transform their mental abilities into academic performance (Baumfield, 2004;Brophy, 1998; Pintrich & Schunk, 1996; Zimmerman, 2008).

There are some advantages which are related to the students who have high useof self-regulated learning strategies. For example, they are found to be able to adapttheir methods and strategies in learning and to develop their own learning initiatives,according to the learning objectives (Olaussen & Braten, 1999). As a consequence,they performed better in their academic life. Some other studies (see Bail et al., 2008;Olaussen & Braten, 1999; Ray et al., 2003) had also proven that curricula which weredesigned according to self-regulated learning strategies tended to produce highachievers. Meanwhile, the use of self-regulated learning strategies among studentsalso depends on the different nature of the courses (Ghazali Yusri & Nik MohdRahimi, 2010).

There are many instruments that have been developed to measure students’ use ofthese strategies. One of the most widely used instruments is the Motivated Strategiesfor Learning Questionnaire (MSLQ) developed by Pintrich, Smith, Garcia, andMcKeachie (1991). It is a self-report instrument and has been used in many studies(Duncan & McKeachie, 2005). Based on MSLQ, self-regulated learning strategiesare divided into two main components, namely, motivation and learning strategies,in which the latter contains three sub components, namely, cognitive learningstrategies, metacognitive strategies, and resource management strategies.

This study focuses on cognitive and metacognitive strategies components whichare related to the use of multiple cognitive learning strategies that students employ tomaster their academic tasks. This study investigated four cognitive strategies,namely, rehearsal, elaboration, organization, and critical thinking. Rehearsal is alearning strategy, effective for learning discrete information but it does not provide

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the depth of knowledge to understand relationships between ideas within anacademic field and to bridge between old knowledge and new knowledge. It is alsoeffective for a simple learning task because it activates information in short-termmemory. However, it is not very helpful to gain new knowledge using long-termmemory (Ghazali Yusri & Nik Mohd Rahimi, 2010; Glover, Ronning, & Bruning,1990; Lynch, 2006; Pintrich et al., 1991).

Elaboration helps students to develop the richer knowledge base throughtechniques such as paraphrasing, summarizing, creating analogies, and generativenote taking. Organization is associated with techniques such as clustering, outlining,and distinguishing between main ideas, supporting ideas in a text, and organizingknowledge. Critical thinking helps students to apply their prior knowledge in orderto solve problems or make crucial evaluation (Lynch, 2006). On the other hand,metacognitive regulation is related to metacognitive processing, students’ awareness,knowledge, and control of their learning (Lynch, 2006; Pintrich et al., 1991). Itincludes planning, monitoring, and regulating activities (Pintrich et al., 1991).Planning involves setting educational goals, outcomes, and task analysis. Studentswith self-regulated learning strategies will set specific learning outcomes, monitor theeffectiveness of their learning methods or strategies, and respond to their evaluation(see Ghazali Yusri & Nik Mohd Rahimi, 2010).

Therefore, this study is aimed to investigate cognitive and metacognitivestrategies employed among students as well as the differences in the their usebetween two groups of students with different prior experiences and gender. Thisstudy provided some classroom implications that can be considered to improve theArabic language instructional practices in UiTM as well as other learninginstitutions.

Research questions

This study adresses four research questions:

(1) To what extent do UiTM students use cognitive and metacognitive strategiesin learning oral Arabic?

(2) Are there significant differences in cognitive and metacognitive level betweenstudents with different prior experience, namely SWE and SNE?

(3) Are there significant differences in cognitive and metacognitive level betweenstudents with different gender?

(4) Are there significant differences in cognitive and metacognitive betweenstudents with the interaction of different prior experience, namely SWE andSNE and different gender?

Research methodology

Participants

This study was administered to 183 samples of students from all faculties at UiTM,Malaysia, and they were selected based on the disproportionate stratified randomsampling. Based on students’ prior experience of Arabic learning, they were dividedinto two groups (1) 77 students with 5 years of experience of learning Arabic atsecondary school, namely SWE and (2) 106 students with no experience, namely

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SNE. On the other hand, based on gender, students were also divided into twogroups, (1) 73 males and (2) 110 females. The number of samples within groups(learning experience and gender) did not exceed the ratio of 1:1.5, which was crucialto compare means between groups (Coakes & Steed, 2001; Hair, Black, Babin,Anderson, & Tatham, 2006). There are three levels of Arabic course taken in threesemesters. At the end of the course, they will have 84 hours of meetings for threesemesters. The samples were chosen from the third level which is the highest level ofthe Arabic course in UiTM as they were considered as the final product of the Arabiccurriculum in UiTM.

Instrument

The students responded to a 7-point Likert scale from ‘‘not at all true of me’’ to‘‘very true of me’’ of a self-report questionnaire – the MSLQ – developed by Pintrichet al. (1991). MSLQ contains 81 items, 31 items assess motivational beliefs, 31 itemsfocus on learning strategies, and 19 items on resource management.

These scales can be used together or individually. In this study, only rehearsal,elaboration, organization, critical thinking, and metacognitive scales were used.Before distributing the questionnaire to students, informed consent was given by theauthors. It was then translated into Malay language because all the students wereMalays. The translated questionnaire was referred to language experts to ensure itsaccuracy. All items were also modified according to the research objectives whichwere to measure strategies used in oral Arabic learning. A pilot study was carried outto determine the internal consistency between items. Table 1 illustrates the alphavalues which are 0.69 and 0.85. These values are accepted by scholars (Sekaran,2003). In order to interprete the mean level, the interpretation followed is as stated inTable 2.

Results

Initially, two-way multivariate analysis of variance was used to analyse the cognitiveand metacognitive differences between students with different prior experience and

Table 1. Coefficient alphas of MSLQ scales.

No. Subscales a

1 Cognitive learning strategies (rehearsal, elaboration, organization,and critical thinking)

0.85

2 Metacognitive self-regulation 0.69

Table 2. The interpretation of mean for 7-point Likert scale.

Mean score Interpretation

5.01–7.00 High3.01–5.00 Moderate1.00–3.00 Low

Note: Adapted from Nik Mohd Rahimi (2004).

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gender. Preliminary assumption testing was conducted to check for normality,linearity, univariate, and multivariate outliers, homogeneity of variance–covariancematrices and multicollinearity, with no violations noted.

The analysis showed that there was a statistically significant difference betweenstudents with different prior experience on the combined dependent variables (asshown in Table 3): F(5, 175) ¼ 4.59, p ¼ 0.001, Wilks’ Lambda (l) ¼ 0.884, partialeta squared (Z2) ¼ 0.116. When the results for the dependent variables wereconsidered separately, the differences to reach statistical significance (as shown inTable 4), at alpha level of 0.05 were (1) rehearsal: F(1, 181) ¼ 6.76, p ¼ 0.010, partialZ2 ¼ 0.036; (2) elaboration: F(1, 181) ¼ 13.31, p ¼ 0.000, partial Z2 ¼ 0.069;(3) organization: F(1, 181) ¼ 7.57, p ¼ 0.007, partial Z2 ¼ 0.041; (4) criticalthinking: F(1, 181) ¼ 22.19, p ¼ 0.000, partial Z2 ¼ 0.110; and (5) metacognitive:F(1, 181) ¼ 8.21, p ¼ 0.005, partial Z2 ¼ 0.044.

An inspection of the mean scores (as shown in Table 5) indicated that SWEreported having higher levels of (1) rehearsal (M ¼ 5.06, SE ¼ 0.095) than SNE(M ¼ 4.72, SE ¼ 0.085), (2) elaboration (M ¼ 4.69, SE ¼ 0.095) thanSNE (M ¼ 4.22, SE ¼ 0.086), (3) organization (M ¼ 4.62, SE ¼ 0.107) than SNE(M ¼ 4.22, SE ¼ 0.096), (4) critical thinking (M ¼ 4.72, SE ¼ 0.091) thanSNE (M ¼ 4.14, SE ¼ 0.082), and (5) metacognitive (M ¼ 4.75, SE ¼ 0.073) thanSNE (M ¼ 4.47, SE ¼ 0.066).

The analysis also showed that there was a statistically significant differencebetween students with different gender on the combined dependent variables (asshown in Table 3): F(5, 175) ¼ 5.91, p ¼ 0.000, Wilks’ l ¼ 0.856, partial Z2 ¼ 0.144.When the results for the dependent variables were considered separately, the

Table 3. Multivariate test of effects: prior experience and gender.

Effects Wilks’ Lambda (l) F-value df1 df2 Significance Partial Z2

Prior experience 0.884 4.59 5 175 0.001* 0.116Gender 0.856 5.91 5 175 0.000* 0.144Prior experience6gender 0.969 1.12 5 175 0.353 0.031

Note: *Significant at p 5 0.05.

Table 4. Tests of between-subjects effects: prior experience and gender.

Effects Dependent variables F-value df1 df2 Significance Partial Z2

Prior experience Rehearsal 6.76 1 181 0.010* 0.036Elaboration 13.31 1 181 0.000* 0.069Organization 7.57 1 181 0.007* 0.041Critical thinking 22.19 1 181 0.000* 0.110Metacognitive 8.21 1 181 0.005* 0.044

Gender Rehearsal 21.55 1 181 0.000* 0.107Elaboration 3.04 1 181 0.083 0.017Organization 16.60 1 181 0.000* 0.085Critical thinking 3.12 1 181 0.079 0.017Metacognitive 16.78 1 181 0.000* 0.086

Note: *Significant at p 5 0.05.

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differences to reach statistical significance (as shown in Table 4), at alpha level of0.05 were (1) rehearsal: F(1, 181) ¼ 21.55, p ¼ 0.000, partial Z2 ¼ 0.107; (2)organization: F(1, 181) ¼ 16.60, p ¼ 0.000, partial Z2 ¼ 0.085; and (3) metacogni-tive: F(1, 181) ¼ 16.78, p ¼ 0.000, partial Z2 ¼ 0.086.

An inspection of the mean scores (as shown in Table 5) indicated thatfemales reported having higher levels of (1) rehearsal (M ¼ 5.18, SE ¼ 0.082) thanmales (M ¼ 4.59, SE ¼ 0.097), (2) organization (M ¼ 4.71, SE ¼ 0.093) than males(M ¼ 4.13, SE ¼ 0.110), and (3) metacognitive (M ¼ 4.81, SE ¼ 0.063) than males(M ¼ 4.41, SE ¼ 0.075).

There was no statistically significant difference found between the interaction ofboth independent variables which were different prior experience and differentgender on the combined dependent variables (as shown in Table 2): F(5, 175) ¼ 1.12,p ¼ 0.353, Wilks’ l ¼ 0.969, partial Z2 ¼ 0.031.

Discussion

The findings revealed that only rehearsal strategy had been highly used by studentsand that was only by SWE and females. Other than that all cognitive andmetacognitive strategies were used at a moderate level. These findings proved thatcognitive and metacognitive strategies use was not very encouraging among students.The higher use of rehearsal compared to other cognitive strategies shows someindicators to the learning process. It means that students depended more onmemorizing keywords and phrases in Arabic and used them again in their oralexercises. They made use of the same patterns of phrases that they learned andtherefore will probably face difficulties when they deal with more complex words ornew phrases which they do not find them in the syllabus.

One of the factors which may contribute to the high use of this rehearsal strategyis the nature of Arabic learning in UiTM, which is based primarily on textbooks. Astudent is considered successful in learning when he has mastered words and phrasesstated in the textbooks. On the other hand, all exam questions in UiTM were also

Table 5. Descriptive analysis of effects: prior experience and gender.

Effects Dependent variables Groups Mean (M) Standard error (SE)

Prior experience Rehearsal SNE 4.72 0.085SWE 5.06 0.095

Elaboration SNE 4.22 0.086SWE 4.69 0.095

Organization SNE 4.22 0.096SWE 4.62 0.107

Critical thinking SNE 4.14 0.082SWE 4.72 0.091

Metacognitive SNE 4.47 0.066SWE 4.75 0.073

Gender Rehearsal Male 4.59 0.097Female 5.18 0.082

Organization Male 4.13 0.110Female 4.71 0.093

Metacognitive Male 4.41 0.075Female 4.81 0.063

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based on textbooks which no words or phrases outside the syllabus would beincluded in the tests. Other than that all language activities whether outside or insidethe classrooms were conducted in order to strengthen the syllabus mastery.

The second factor that may lead to the high use of rehearsal is the students’motivation in learning oral Arabic. Some scholars (Morris, 2005; Young, 2005)revealed from their studies that highly extrinsic motivated students might use highlevel of rehearsal strategies. It came back to the motive of their study which wasprimarily focusing on getting more external rewards, high marks and recognitionfrom outsiders. Therefore, they might be focusing on memorizing the syllabuscontent provided to them and ‘‘vomiting’’ it back in exams. They might ignore to usemore complex strategies which were useful to deal with new problems that theymight face in reality because they realize that these strategies might not help themmuch in exams and not to be tested as well.

The use of complex strategies is related to intrinsic motivation which concernson the language mastery. Therefore, in order to make students use higher strategiessuch as critical thinking, they also should be intrinsically oriented, in parallel withwhat was concluded by Samimy (2008). Intrinsic motivation will make them to useseveral strategies to master the language, do not depend on textbooks solely, andmay use multiple language resources especially authentic materials in order toacquire the language. However, the status of Arabic language in Malaysia mightcontribute to build intrinsic motivation among students, whereas in Malaysia,Arabic is considered as the official language of Islam and all students involved inthis study were Muslims. Islam as one of the most influential motivations inlearning Arabic in Malaysia has been proven by a previous study (Kaseh, NikFarakh, & Zeti Akhtar, 2010) and it also becomes one of the most effectivestrategies used in learning Arabic (Kamarul Shukri, Mohd Amin, Nik MohdRahimi, & Zamri, 2009).

On the other hand, when comparison was carried out between students withdifferent prior experience, it was found that SWE scored significantly higher thanSNE in all cognitive strategies showing that prior experience had highly influencedthe use of these strategies, in parallel with the causal attribution theory (Pintrich &Schunk, 1996). Meanwhile, this study also found that females were foundsignificantly higher than males in rehearsal, organization, and metacognitivestrategies but not in elaboration and critical thinking. Moreover, rehearsal strategyamong females was found high whereas other strategies were moderate. Thesefinding supported Bembenutty (2007) who discovered that females were higher in theuse of self-regulated learning while Williams, Burden, and Lanvers (2002) also foundthat females had a higher motivation in learning compared to males.

Metacognitive also had been previously discussed to have a high relationshipwith cognitive strategies (Rhee & Pintrich, 2004). Therefore, the significant differencebetween both gender in metacognitive might be influenced by a different use ofrehearsal and organization in both gender. To make it more interesting, it can also beassumed that the moderate use of metacognitive among all students might bereflected by the moderate use of cognitive strategies among them as well.

Implications

The findings of this study revealed that the use of cognitive and metacognitivestrategies among UiTM students were moderate. Therefore, some improvement and

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changes in learning oral Arabic should be taken to stimulate the use of thesestrategies. First, oral Arabic activities which stimulate these strategies should beimplemented. Perhaps, meaningful communicative activities as suggested byLittlewood (1992) and communicative activities which based on five principal assuggested by Johnson (1982) can be used in this situation. Such activities should notbe dependent on textbooks and syllabus content, but they should also bespontaneous in nature, which can stimulate the use of high cognitive strategiessuch as critical thinking. The use of authentic materials might be strongly suggestedin order to make students know the real use of the language in their real life. Pica,Kang, and Sauro (2006) reported their success in using these activities which basedon knowledge transfer in language learning. Among techniques that they used intheir research were finding the differences and jigsaw puzzles.

On the other hand, students should also be allowed to have their own control intheir learning, particularly, in selecting their own lessons and organising theirlearning. However, language teachers should actively participate in the learningprocess as facilitators in order to ensure that they achieve their learning objectives.The learning should not be solely dependent on textbook content, but othermaterials should be used as well. The important things here were to accommodatestudents with strategies that enable them to use the language in their dailycommunication life. Different students might need different challenges in activities.Therefore, many scholars such as Cajkler and Addelman (2000) and Dabbagh (2003)suggested different activities to students with different level of motivation andlearning strategies. Highly motivated students could be bored if the learning processis too slow while low-motivated students tend to face problems to cope with learningif it is too fast.

Students who believed that they can effectively use cognitive and metacognitivestrategies were more persistent in completing academic tasks compared to others(Pintrich & De Groot, 1990). Meanwhile, Sungur (2007) found that metacognitiveuse was influenced by intrinsic orientation, task value, control of learning belief, andself-efficacy. He also stressed that to use metacognitive strategy, a student needs to behighly motivated.

This study also suggested that the syllabus used in UiTM could be improved inorder to support higher cognitive strategies. This step is important to producestudents with high competencies in oral Arabic skills. The improvement starts fromselecting learning materials, conducting oral Arabic activities, and learning tasks aswell as the assessment method. Learning materials should reflect the real use ofArabic language. Therefore, authentic materials should be used in learning. Eventhough it is difficult to meet Arabic native speakers in some parts of Malaysia,students can still access the real conversation and Arabic authentic materials throughInternet. Activities and learning tasks should also support cognitive andmetacognitive use among students, not only test their ability to memorize wordsor phrases in textbooks but also how to use that knowledge in order to survive in thereal world. On the other hand, oral Arabic assessment should also be in the form ofproficiency test and not achievement test, due to the first will assess students’ abilityin mastering certain level of proficiency regardless of the syllabus they are attachedto. While the latter will only assess students’ ability to master the syllabusprovided to them. Some excellent students in an institution might not be excellentanymore if they are tested using another set of questions which is different from theirsyllabus.

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Conclusion

Even though, there were differences among students with different prior experienceand gender, the level of cognitive and metacognitive strategies used among moststudents were not encouraging. Some improvement in learning oral Arabic in UiTMshould be taken, especially in selecting learning materials, implementing oral Arabicactivities, and learning tasks as well as oral assessment methods. Prior experienceand gender on the other hand, were proven to influence cognitive and metacognitivestrategies used among students. Therefore, students with no experience in learningArabic need to be exposed to more of these strategies in order to cope with studentswho had more experience. Male students also need to have some guidance as theywere significantly lower in some strategies compared to females. Some collaborativeactivities with mixed prior experience and gender might be considered in classes inorder to make students learn from each other.

Notes on contributors

Ghazali Yusri is a senior lecturer of Arabic at the Academy of Language Studies, UniversitiTeknologi MARA, Shah Alam, Malaysia.

Nik Mohd Rahimi (PhD) is an associate professor of Arabic at the Faculty of Education,Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Malaysia.

Parilah M. Shah (PhD) is an associate professor of TESL at the Faculty of Education,Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Malaysia.

Wan Haslina Wah is a senior lecturer at the Faculty of Medicine, Universiti KebangsaanMalaysia, Malaysia.

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