Construct validation of the revised Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory (MARSI-R) and its relation to learning effort and reading achievement

Abstract

Language students apply different strategies to learn a second language (L2), especially when they want to attain proficiency in reading. The aim of the present study was to revisit the validity of the Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory (MARSI-R) among Saudi students using a new statistical method of confirmatory composite analysis (CCA). Past studies modeled MARSI-R as a common factor and applied confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to test its validity. However, studies struggled to provide support for the validity of the MASRI-R with each suggesting different model. Instead, we treat the inventory as a composite, meaning that the items in MARSI-R form and define the inventory and not the other way around. We use partial least squared structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) to allow the composite model to be estimated. The results indicated that the constructs of MARSI-R are better operationalized as composites not common factors as supported through CCA exclusively. After confirming the nature of the inventory, we evaluated the extent to which MARSI-R is related to reading proficiency through the mediational mechanism of motivational intensity (i.e., learning effort). Descriptive statistics illustrated that problem-solving strategies are the most used strategy and that females used the strategies more frequently than their male counterparts. Most importantly, the structural model showed that metacognitive reading strategies only exert an indirect effect on reading proficiency, suggesting that the effect of strategies is mediated by motivational intensity (i.e., learning effort). Thus, motivational intensity seems to be mediator in the relationship between metacognitive reading strategies and reading proficiency. Finally, methodological and educational implications are provided.

When and how to use confirmatory composite analysis (CCA) in second language research

“…CCA was proposed as a tool to empirically assess composite models (Henseler et al, 2014;Schuberth et al, 2018) and introduced to various research fields including business , information systems (Hubona et al, 2021), tourism and hospitality (Liu et al, 2022), and human development (Schamberger et al, 2023). The first application of CCA in the L2 domain was done by Alamer and Alsagoafi (2023) who empirically tested the validity of the Revised Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory (MARSI-R; Mokhtari et al, 2018). In their study, the authors compared the results of CCA and CFA when examining the validity of MARSI-R.…”

“…This might have resulted in important strategies being sacrificed. Therefore, we suggest that future research should re-evaluate such inventories using CCA (e.g., Alamer & Alsagoafi, 2023).…”

“…Specifically, in the first step, a CCFA is conducted to assess the composite and common factor models and in the second step, the emergent and latent variables are embedded in a structural model together with their items. For example, past research has shown that motivation has an impact on the use of GRS, PSS, and SRS (e.g., Alamer & Alsagoafi, 2023). To analyze such a situation, in the first step, a CCFA can be conducted to assess the composite and common factor models used to model the four constructs.…”

“…In the following, we argue that L2 research also deals with constructs that are made up of elements. Potential examples are L2 achievement (Papi & Khajavy, 2021;Sparks & Alamer, 2022;, first language skills (Sparks, 2023), and the use of strategies such as language learning strategies (Oxford & Griffiths, 2016), vocabulary learning strategies (Alamer et al, in press), and metacognitive reading strategies (Alamer & Alsagoafi, 2023;Mokhtari & Reichard, 2002). Because emergent variables are made up of their elements but do not cause them, the implied assumptions of the common factor model seem to be invalid.…”