Exploring the relationship between metacognitive awareness, motivation, and L1 students' critical listening skills

This study aimed to provide a more comprehensive view on the relationship between metacognitive awareness, intrinsic and extrinsic listening motivation, and L1 primary school students' critical listening skills. A critical listening test and different self-report questionnaires were administered to 649 native Dutch-speaking sixth-grade students. Quantitative data analysis techniques, including a series of one-way multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVAs) and a structural equation model (SEM) were used to analyze the data. The results indicated that high-level listeners were more aware of different factors of metacognition (i.e., person knowledge, problem-solving, and directed attention) and more intrinsically motivated to listen compared to average and low-level listeners. Further, complex structural relationships among students' motivation, metacognitive awareness, and critical listening skills were found. The results showed that both intrinsic and extrinsic listening motivation were antecedents of students' reported awareness of metacognition. The findings also suggested that metacognitive awareness mediated the relationship between motivation and critical listening skills.