The Effect of Inquiry-Based Learning Strategy on Developing Saudi Students’ Meta-Cognitive Reading Comprehension Skills

The main aim of the present study is to develop first year university students' meta-cognitive reading comprehension using inquiry-based learning strategy. Subjects of the study were 106 (53 males, 53 females) first year university students enrolled in two classrooms at colleges representing urban and sub-urban areas in Shaqra University. The present study adopted a quasi-experimental design with one-group. The results of present study showed that first year university students should have the following reading comprehension skills- guessing, description, analyzing and identifying the main idea. Accordingly, the suggested strategy was designed and used to develop these identified meta-cognitive reading comprehension skills. A reading comprehension test, based on the identified skills, was designed and used as a pretest and posttest. Findings of the present study showed that there were statistical differences between the students’ mean score on the pretest and posttest in favor of the posttest, and there were statistical differences between the students’ mean score on the posttest at the level of .05. This can be attributed to the effectiveness of using the inquiry-based learning strategy in developing students' meta-cognitive reading comprehension skills at the university stage.