The relationships between learning strategies and english computer-based listening test performance of Thai University students

Abstract

The objectives of this study were to investigate the relationships between the use of cognitive and metacognitive strategies and students’ performance on and English computer-based listening test, and to explore the differences in the use of the strategies by high and low-ability listeners. The subjects were 66 fourth-year Chulalongkorn University students from the Faculty of Commerce and Accountancy who were selected on a volunteer basis. The students were classified into high-listening-ability and low-listening-ability groups by their listening proficiency scores. Pearson Correlation was used to explore the relationships between the strategies and students’ performance on the listening test, and Independent-Samples t-test was used to investigate the differences in the use of the strategies by the high-listening-ability and the low-listening-ability groups. The instruments were a computer-based listening test, questionnaires and retrospective interviews. The results revealed significant differences in the use of the strategies by the two groups. The high-listening-ability group used the cognitive strategies significantly more than the low-listening-ability group. They also used the metacognitive strategies significantly more than the low-listening-ability group. Moreover, the data showed that the high-listening-ability group significantly used more concluding strategy, rule-applying strategy, note-taking strategy, and planning strategy than the other group. The interviews showed the different uses of the strategies, and emphasized more appropriate use of the strategies by the high-listening-ability group. The study also showed no significant relationship between the use of cognitive strategies and the performance of the students in both groups, and no significant relationship between the use of metacognitive strategies and the low-listening-ability group’s performance. However, a significant negative relationship between the use of metacognitive strategies and the high-ability listeners’ performance was found. This could be linked to various factors such as learner variables, task types and language ability. The study provided more insight into the listening decoding processes in relation to the use of cognitive and metacognitive strategies by the high-listening-ability group and the low-listening-ability group. It also revealed the listening processes of the successful listeners the depended greatly on their linguistic knowledge and their appropriate use of the strategies.