A Proficiency-Based Comparative Investigation of Listening Comprehension Strategies Employed by Saudi EFL Learners

Abstract

The study in hand intends to investigate the comparative analyses of the perceptions of Saudi EFL learners with high grade point average (HGPA) and low-grade point average (LGPA) towards cognitive, metacognitive and socio-affective listening comprehension strategies employed by them to comprehend listening texts. A modified 5-point strongly agree to strongly disagree Likert-scale questionnaire has been administered to Saudi EFL learners with HGPA and LGPA to generate data for this empirical study. The reliability and validity of the questionnaire has been determined. The instrument was translated into Arabic which was administered to the cohort from both levels to identify their responses towards the various questionnaire items. Independent-samples T-test was run to determine descriptive statistics as well as to identify whether any statistically significant difference exist along GPA. The data generated through this comparative analysis were used to test three null hypotheses set for this study. The results have reported that by and large no significant differences exist in the perceptions of the HGPA and LGPA participants of this study and null hypotheses were accepted. It was found that Saudi EFL learners represented by the participants of this study resort to cognitive strategies the most followed by the metacognitive ones to comprehend listening texts. As far socio-affective strategies are concerned, the results indicate their least use by the participants of this study. The findings of this empirical study suggest that Saudi EFL learners like to exploit bottom-up strategies more than the top-down ones. Recommendations have been forwarded at the end based on the findings of this empirical study.