Discipline and gender variation in ESP learners’ use of metacognitive strategies

Metacognition involves conscious thinking about one’s learning and is implemented in languagelearning when learners set goals and evaluate their performance, plan their studies, use theirlanguage knowledge, attend to the input, search speaking and reading opportunities and ways ofenhancing their learning outcomes and focus on their errors. This study sought to measure the useof metacognitive strategies by eight groups of Iranian ESP freshmen in four different disciplines andto detect probable discipline and gender variations. Having assessed the initial homogeneity of thegroups via Analysis of Variance of the scores obtained from a Key English Test (KET), the researcheradministered the Metacognitive section of Oxford’s Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL)(1985). The Between-subjects Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) of the research data revealed that theparticipants studying Mechanical Engineering and Computer outperformed those studyingManagement and Psychology. Gender variation, however, was observed only in the participants’ useof self-evaluation strategy where males reported a more frequent use. The findings revealed the ESPlearners’ need for metacognitive training particularly across gender and major.