Online Metacognitive Reading Strategies by Internal and External Locus of Control

Introduction

The increasing use of internet in teaching and learning has far outplaces our understanding of how learners’ independency effect online learning progress. Online reading environment gets more popular among learners because of its multiple information and representation environments (Richardson, Maeda, Lv, & Caskurlu, 2017). Getting computers into universities and making texts online are relatively easy but reading the online texts to learn is a greater challenge. Today, the workforce is on the usage of online reading for maximum productivity and creativity. To maximize productivity and creativity from reading online texts, there is a need to be aware of online reading strategies to read online texts. Application of online reading strategies to read for better understanding of the text is always an important issue. Online reading needs skills and strategies to perform efficiently in an online environment. It is important to know reading strategies since researchers believed that this would enable readers to perform reading more efficiently. Moreover, the worth of online reading environment makes most of the universities; teachers and students focus more on new learning environment. In the real experience, most of the students who participated in online reading have found that reading online is very challenging, and some failed to cope with it. New reading strategies which are different from traditional reading strategies are required in order for online readers to generate questions, locate, evaluate, synthesize, and communicate information on the Internet. However, despite the importance of online environment role on reading performance, there is little knowledge about metacognitive reading strategy process employ by the EFL readers to read an online text. Research into the uses of online reading strategies by postgraduate EFL learners show that students using social skills to develop their reading strategies in an online reading environment (Liu & Tsai, 2008). Students expressed strong and positive perceptions of strategies in an online reading environment (Ibrahim, Ida, Prain & Collet, 2014). When Iranian students participating in an online reading text, many may not understand how to make full use of online reading platform independently as a tool to use for interactional online reading strategies. In online reading environment, learning will occur through navigations. Sometimes nonlinear context of this environment makes students experience disorientations. This type of disorientation can limit learners understanding of the texts they read online (Berge & Collins, 1995; Gay, Trumbull & Mazur, 1991). Such disorientation requires learners’ attitude to complete the task and distract it in the process. On the other hand, learners with high positive attitude are more likely to succeed in completion of online reading tasks (Dabbagh & Bannan-Ritland, 2005). Readers with internal locus of control are internally motivated to perform independently in an online reading environment but they need to establish new skills and strategies. Online reading environments makes an opportunity for adult learners’ learning responsibility and self-direction to feel more comfortable and responsible to navigate their reading, but they challenge more to adapt their reading strategies with online reading environment (Mesgar, Bakar & Amir, 2012). Most studies indicated that students with high positive attitude regarded as having locus of control which is divided to internal and external students (Cappella & Weinstein, 2001; Fehrenbach, 1991; Maguiness, 1999; Rotter, 1990).