Evaluating metacognitive strategies to comprehend narrative texts

Abstract

One of the most worrying areas in education today is reading comprehension. The conceptualisation of the comprehension process has been enriched in recent years as metacognitive aspects have been included as an essential strategy to optimise its development. Certain instruments are used to evaluate metacognitive strategies for comprehending expository texts at school, but not for narrative literary texts. This paper is aimed to develop a Questionnaire of Metacognitive Strategies to Comprehend Narrative Texts (CEMCoTeN is its Spanish acronym) to help improve comprehension processes and their didactical development. The instrument was completed by 610 University of Castilla-La Mancha students. The results reflect three different metacognitive factors that relate to the comprehension of narrative texts: Global Reading Strategies, Customization Strategies and Creativity Strategies.