Investigation of cognitive and metacognitive strategies used by pre-service science teachers exposed to explicit and peer tutoring reading strategies instruction

Abstract

The aim of this study was to investigate cognitive and metacognitive strategies and products of cognitive and metacognitive processes that preservice science teachers engaged in while reading heat-temperature text after being exposed to no reading strategy instruction, explicit reading strategy instruction and peer tutoring reading strategy instruction. This study employed holistic multiple-case study wherein preservice teachers were assigned to one of the three groups which received no reading strategy instruction (n=9), explicit reading strategy instruction (n=10) and peer tutoring (n=10) based on their scores on Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory and good communication among them. The content of strategy instruction included various domain-specific reading comprehension strategies used for activating both cognitive and metacognitive activities which contribute to improving conceptual understanding and conceptual change. It was found that the diversity and frequency of using cognitive strategies and products of cognitive activities were the highest in the explicit strategy instruction group, and the metacognitive strategies and products of metacognitive activities were more diverse and frequent in reading strategy instruction groups compared to no strategy instruction group.