Teaching Writing Assessment: Does Metacognitive Awareness-Raising Work?

The present quasi-experimental study with a non-equivalent control group pretest-posttest design investigated the effects of metacognitive awareness on developing Iranian EFL learners’ assessment ability. Forty-one male and female upper-intermediate level learners in two intact classes from an English language school in the Tehran province were selected based on convenience sampling. The classes were randomly assigned to the Cognitive-Based Assessment Instruction Group (CAIG) the and Metacognitive-Based Assessment Instruction Group (MAIG). A general proficiency test administered before the treatment verified the participants’ homogeneity. The Metacognitive Awareness Writing Questionnaire and Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire were also administered before and after the study to measure participants’ metacognitive awareness level and self-regulation. The MAIG used metacognitive strategies such as planning, monitoring, and revising to assess English essays. The CAIG performed assessments based on cognitive strategies and a Writing Rubric. The participants’ improvement in assessment was measured every other session during the treatment. After the treatment, the participants took two writing posttests (rehearsed and unrehearsed writing topics). Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) results showed that the MAIG outperformed the CAIG in both posttests, and raising metacognitive awareness could significantly enhance the participants’ assessment ability. The Repeated Measures Analysis of Variance (RM-ANOVA) and Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) revealed that the MAIG participants’ performances were significantly better than the CAIG on seven writing assessments. The MAIG’s self-regulation was also significantly higher. This study has implications for materials developers, EFL teachers, and syllabus designers to focus on raising metacognitive awareness in writing assessment.