Scale Validation and Intervention Effects of Metacognitive Reading Strategies in CET-6: A Study in Chinese Second-Tier University Setting

This study validated a metacognitive reading strategy questionnaire for CET-6 Reading (College English Test-Band 6) and investigated the effectiveness of metacognitive reading strategy instruction on CET-6 reading performance. The research was conducted at a second-tier university in China, involving 478 participants in the factor analysis phase, with 245 questionnaires used for Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA) and 233 questionnaires used for Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA). In the intervention phase, there were 80 participants in total, with 40 participants in each of the experimental and control groups. The participants in the factor analysis phase and the intervention phase were independent of each other. The study employed quantitative research methods, including EFA and CFA using SPSS 26.0 and AMOS software to validate the reliability and validity of the questionnaire. Additionally, independent samples t-tests were used to compare the pre- and post-intervention test and survey scores between the experimental group (EG) and the control group (CG).The results indicated that the adapted questionnaire demonstrated good reliability and validity, confirming its suitability as a tool for measuring metacognitive strategy use in CET-6 reading. Furthermore, the intervention effectively improved students' reading performance and the use of metacognitive strategies, suggesting that incorporating metacognitive reading strategies into instruction has a positive impact on students' reading performance.This study highlights the importance of incorporating metacognitive reading strategies into pedagogical practices, providing information for improving the CET-6 pass rate accordingly.