Exploring the factors that affect reading comprehension of EAP learners

As far as academic reading comprehension is concerned, a network of linguistic skills and strategies operate in a complex and integrated matter. Since it is impossible to examine all the factors affecting reading comprehension all at once, it is more reasonable to compare and contrast the predictive effects of specific variables against each other and elicit the role of each of them in determining academic performance. For this reason, the present study aims to investigate whether specifically the depth of vocabulary knowledge, syntactic awareness or metacognitive awareness was a more powerful predictor of academic reading comprehension. 45 students from the English Language Teaching Department in an English-medium foundation university in Turkey participated in the study. The results of multiple regression analysis revealed that with a sample of homogenous first language (L1) background learners, depth of vocabulary knowledge was not a strong predictor of academic reading comprehension for English for Academic Purposes (EAP) students. However, it was found that syntactic awareness was a significant predictor of academic reading comprehension in second language (L2) and of the investigated variables, metacognitive reading strategies have much to contribute to academic reading comprehension.

► Metacognitive awareness is a strong predictor of academic reading comprehension.
► Syntactic awareness is also a strong estimator of academic reading success for EAP students with the same L1 background.
► The depth of vocabulary knowledge is not a good estimator of academic reading comprehension.
► L1 background learners use metacognitive skills in academic reading tasks to compensate for a lack of vocabulary knowledge.