the relationship between metacognitive strategies and iranian intermediate efl learners' autonomy in vocabulary learning

Learners’ autonomy has widely been discussed in language teaching, and many scholars and practitioners have mentioned the merits and values associated with it. it is stated that autonomous learning can enhance the quality of vocabulary learning. to this end, the present study aimed at investigating the probable the relationship between meta-cognitive strategies and iranian intermediate efl learners’ autonomy in vocabulary learning. the population in the present research was 120 male efl learners, between 16 and 18 years old, who were selected through convenience sampling from the arman secondary high school in gorgan, golestan, iran. after administering oxford quick placement test, 70 of the students whose scores fell in the range of intermediate level (24-40) were selected as participants of the study. two different questionnaires were used to collect the relevant data in this study including 1) meta-cognitive strategies adapted from ibrahim, sarudin, muhamad, & esa (2013) and 2) learners’ autonomy adapted from feng (2015) questionnaire. the present research project was a quantitative and descriptive correlational survey study. the collected raw data were analyzed with spss version 25. the results of statistical analyses, namely spearman rho correlation analysis revealed that there was a significant relationship between meta-cognitive strategies including (planning, monitoring, evaluating) and iranian intermediate efl learners’ autonomy in vocabulary learning. also, the researcher of the current study found that among the three main sub-scales of the meta-cognitive strategies questionnaire, “evaluating” had the highest mean. however, the lowest mean belonged to the “planning”. the obtained results are discussed in light of the literature. the information provided in this study can be useful for efl teachers, material developers, and educational policy makers. the results also have a number of implications and recommendations for future research are subsequently given.