A quantitative study of upper-secondary ESL students’ reading comprehension abilities in relation to reading strategies, metacognitive awareness, and motivation

This study investigates reading comprehension strategies amongst 298 Swedish ESL students in upper-secondary school, possible relationships between high motivation to learn and high strategy use, and whether more experienced readers tend to use reading strategies more frequently than lesser experienced readers. Data was collected through online surveys, and the findings were analysed using quantitative analysis. The results of the study showed that experienced readers tend to use reading strategies more often than less experienced readers, but that the most employed strategies amongst students seem to be naturally occurring rather than metacognitive and self-regulated ones, indicating that the participating Swedish upper-secondary students lack sufficient knowledge of other reading strategies. The data regarding the possible relationships between high levels of motivation and a more varied use of reading strategies do not indicate a strong correlation. One possible conclusion of the study is that even if students seem to perceive themselves as strategy users, the strategies deemed most important by researchers still end up amongst the least used strategies, indicating that students still need to receive more explicit training in the use and functions of such strategies