the effect of webquest-based metacognitive writing strategy instruction on iranian efl learners’writing performance

This study examined the effect of webquest-based metacognitive writing strategy instruction on writing performance of iranian efl learners. the participants of the present study were 111 efl university students chosen out of 120 students based on their pet language proficiency test scores.there were randomly assigned in to 2 groups. 55 students in one group taking webquest-based instruction and 56 students in the other group taking face-to-face instruction. one day prior to onset of training, a test of ielts writing was given as pre-test to all students and at the end of training, they responded to another version of ielts writing test as the post-test. during a 5-week course of intervention, the participants were taught the metacognitive writing strategies based on calla instructional model to promote the learning process. this model has five instruction phases including preparation, presentation, practice, evaluation, and expansion. the result of an independent sample t-test revealed that there was a significant difference between writing post-test scores of the 2 groups of learners (webquest-based learners vs. face-to-face learners) after receiving metacognitive writing strategy instruction. moreover, the result of a paired sample t-test indicated that there was a significant difference between pre-test and post-test writing scores of efl students who were exposed to webquest-based instruction. however, there was no significant difference between pretest and posttest writing scores of efl students who were exposed to face-to-face instruction. all in all, although metacognitive writing strategies have great impact on posttest writing performance scores of efl students in both groups, it is the type of instruction which determines the effectiveness of metacognitive writing strategies.