Understanding How Chinese College Students Use Metacognitive Strategies When Learning English: A Validation Study of a Questionnaire
Abstract
Despite the widely acknowledged importance of metacognitive strategy use in language learning, it has almost always been investigated merely as a subcategory of language-learning strategies, and validity testing of the psychometric properties of the items used in such investigations has not been carried out. These limitations are further compounded by lack of consideration of national and cultural differences. Accordingly, the present study tested the psychometric characteristics of 934 Chinese college-level EFL learners’ responses to the Metacognitive Strategy Use Questionnaire (MSUQ). The three data-analysis approaches used were principal component analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and Rasch measurement. We found that the MSUQ could be best represented by four subtypes of metacognitive strategy use: Arranging and planning your learning, evaluating your learning, centering your learning , and seeking opportunities . In addition, while MSUQ showed strong functioning in measuring metacognitive strategies, we found: 1) Delaying speech production is a misfit under Centering your learning ; 2) Centering your learning is the easiest strategy for participants to endorse while Seeking opportunities is the hardest; 3) The instrument may not be able to capture respondents at a higher end of the metacognitive strategy use continuum. The findings confirmed a good psychometric property of the instrument and advocated for slight revisions of items in future research.