Concept mapping and summarization in L2 metacognitive monitoring: A quantitative study

Active reading comprehension depends not only on readers' decoding and comprehension skills, but also on their ability to evaluate their comprehension during reading. Evidence from the existing literature indicates that some readers show poor skills in monitoring comprehension when reading in a second language (L2). Using a quantitative quasi-experimental design, this presentation examines the effects of two instructional approaches, concept-mapping and summarization, on L2 readers' comprehension monitoring and metacognitive accuracy. To answer the research questions, I used the error detection paradigm to assess participants' comprehension monitoring and a confidence judgment task in which participants were asked to evaluate their performance on a comprehension test to measure their metacognitive accuracy. The study was conducted in Algeria involving 63 undergraduate students enrolled in an English as a foreign language class. Participants were divided into three groups: the summary, the concept mapping and the control groups. Participants' comprehension monitoring and metacognitive accuracy were assessed before and after the intervention. The obtained results revealed that both interventions were successful in improving participants' comprehension monitoring. While summarization enhanced readers' comprehension monitoring of both the micro- and the macro-structure of texts, concept mapping had stronger effects on monitoring comprehension of the macro structure level. Unlike summarization, the concept mapping intervention was effective in enhancing participants' metacognitive accuracy through decreasing the amount of bias (over-confidence or under-confidence) expressed in their metacognitive judgments of how well they have performed in a comprehension test. The study has important pedagogical implications for teaching reading to L2 learners at tertiary level which will also be discussed in the presentation.