The Development of Metacognition in L2 Reading: A Constructivist Vs Transmissiona) Mode of Learning

The purpose of this study was to investigate development of metacognition in l2 reading, using two different modes of instruction, namely, constructivist and transmissional. at the beginning of the course, both transmissional (t) group (n=31) and constructivist (c) group (n=43) were guided to write an essay on the topic 'my conception of reading'. having received the respective treatment, the students in the two groups wrote an essay on the same topic at the end. using a phenomenographic procedure (marton, 1994), the essays were analyzed for the metacognition processes and their development over time.the analysis revealed different categories of metacognition, and also different typologies of 'reasonong' and 'implications' as two components of metacognition in this study. statistical analysis showed that different categories of patterns identified in this study were significantly developed in the constructivist rather than the transmissional group.