participants of two experimental (experimental-
cognitive
and
experimental
–cognitive-
metacognitive) and one control group in grade
10 including highlighting (study1), mapping
(study2) and visualizing (study3) strategies to
address the research question of whether explicit
mixed cognitive and metacognitive strategy
instructions affect the quality of learners’ strategy
use positively and correlate with reading
comprehension achievement. The following
sequence of stages was utilized in all three studies
with their own strategy application:
1) All groups were exposed to pre-test
on scientific text to measure their background
knowledge.
2) Three experimental-cognitive groups got
their cognitive strategy trainings based on the
situation. For example, a boy called Daniel had a
problem with finding the main idea while reading
a biology text. As a solution to the problem,
highlighting strategy and its goal was explained,
modeled by the teacher: reading the text, circling
the main idea, rereading, and highlighting the
main details in the text. Experimental-cognitive-
metacognitive groups received both cognitive
as well as metacognitive trainings. As for
metacognitive self-regulation, Daniel questioned,
monitored, and evaluated himself about his text
performance. Control groups read, discussed the
texts, and did grammar tasks.
3) Two experimental groups took a test on
their instructed strategy knowledge acquisition.
4) Scientific texts were distributed to groups
to study properly first and then samples were
handed in to trace analysis.
5) Strategy application questionnaire and
verbal ability test were conducted.
6) Post-tests focused on scientific texts were
carried out in all three groups.
Results of strategy knowledge tests of
all three studies indicate that experimental-
cognitive-metacognitive groups became more
knowledgeable because they received strategy
knowledge and self-regulation knowledge rather
than experimental-cognitive groups that limited
with only strategy knowledge. As for descriptive
analysis of highlighting strategy training result
(study1), experimental-cognitive-metacognitive
group dominated experimental-cognitive group
on reading comprehension post test which
confirms the effectiveness of combined strategy
training. However, from authors perspectives,
the finding that experimental-cognitive group
did not outperform control group demonstrate
highlighting strategy as unproductive to measure
its quality. The authors attribute low potential of
highlighting strategy to the finding that learners
could identify the main idea and concepts of the
text, but they could not bring them into coherent
relationships to analyze the text content. In study
2, experimental-cognitive-metacognitive group
was better than experimental-cognitive group
and control group on text comprehension post
test while there was no discrepancy between
experimental-cognitive group and control group
which confirms less effectiveness of training only
mapping strategy without metacognitive self-
regulation strategies. Statistic results of study
3 demonstrate that there was no significant
difference between experimental-cognitive-
metacognitive and experimental-cognitive groups
on visualizing post test, however both groups
outperformed control group. Consequently,
visualizing-cognitive-metacognitive training was
not effective when compared with highlighting
and mind mapping trainings. In sum, students
benefit from cognitive strategy trainings to
comprehend the text reasonably whereas the
effectiveness of metacognitive strategy training
depend on the cognitive strategies use the
potential of which should be supported with
mental model construction. Both quantity and
quality of strategy instructions make sense to
investigate. Cognitive-metacognitive strategy
training affects positively on text comprehension
rather than cognitive strategy training itself [28].
As a matter of fact, a single higher order
cognitive strategy instruction is quite beneficial for
beginners, risky and young learners at the outset
of strategy learning to introduce it explicitly and
practice with gradual increase without confusion
of three to five strategy modeling at one lesson,
however even when practicing a single strategy,
for example, summarizing, a learner may refer
to highlighting, note taking and rereading while