less/more-skilled l2 listeners through metacognitive intervention: selection of the participants based on fuzzy logic analysis approach

Listening is the rudimentary skill amongst the four macro skills. there has been a growth in utilizing metacognitive intervention to expedite the processes of listening comprehension. there is some research focusing on less-skilled and more-skilled l2 listeners in order to reveal which group benefits from the metacognitive intervention the most. most of the conclusions are more rewarding for less-skilled l2 listeners. selection of the students in such studies are based on listeners’ pre-tests results and a predetermined cut-off point by the researchers. however, there are always some learners scoring around the cut-off point. some of them would be selected as more-skilled l2 listeners and the rest as less-skilled l2 listeners. nevertheless, some of these learners would do differently if the test were administered again. if the selection is changeable, it is logical to say the result would be more accurate. therefore, in this study, fuzzy logic approach is utilized applied as a remedial procedure for data analysis to obviate the cut-off point problem. forty-two iranian students were selected including more-skilled group (n=20) and a less-skilled group (n=22); the participants were all between 20 and 30 years old. a quantitative approach was used to address the research question. in doing so, quasi-experimental design was utilized since assignment and selection of participants were based on participants’ pretests and were not randomized. based on the study, fuzzy logic approach illustrated a more stable analysis than previous analyses.