Mindful Reading: A Moodle-Based Approach to Metacognitive Strategy Use in English for Specific Purposes

Abstract

This study examined how Moodle-based continuous assessment tasks associate with undergraduates’ metacognitive engagement in English for Specific Purposes (ESP) reading in a first-year engineering course at a Sri Lankan public university. It used a single-case study design, treating a public university’s ESP reading module as the bounded case. Quantitative (CA1: N = 997; CA2: N = 973) and qualitative (n = 51) evidence were drawn from records of two compulsory continuous assessments and volunteer subset post-task reflections, respectively. The research questions focused on performance patterns across comprehension, summary writing, multiple-choice, and inference tasks; relationships among task components; comparative difficulty and ceiling effects across CA1 and CA2; reported strategy use and online assessment experience; and implications for task design. The objectives were to: (1) analyse student performance patterns across task types in CA1 and CA2; (2) examine relationships among assessment components; (3) evaluate difficulty, discrimination, and ceiling effects; (4) explore learner reflections on strategy use, confidence, and online assessment experience; and (5) propose assessment design implications for capturing metacognitive engagement. Quantitative analysis, using descriptive statistics, Pearson correlations, score distributions, and Moodle quiz statistics, examined difficulty and discrimination. Qualitative analysis, using thematic analysis, identified reported strategies, challenges, and suggestions. Results showed consistently high achievement (x̄ > 97/100) and strong ceiling effects, limiting discrimination among learners. Summary writing functions as a distinct component, showing minimal association with recognition-based items and eliciting evidence of planning, monitoring, and evaluation in reflections. Learners valued summarising and note-taking, reported weaker planning and monitoring, and noted tensions between high scores and low confidence, alongside technical issues during Moodle delivery. Findings suggest rebalancing ESP reading assessment towards more demanding tasks, strengthening productive components, and incorporating brief reflection prompts to capture metacognitive engagement in large-cohort digital contexts.