How Creativity Impacts Cognitive Strategy Choice in Reading Comprehension

The main objective of this study was to find out how more creative language learners use cognitive strategies more when they read English as a foreign language. The participants of this study were comprised of 60 upper-intermediate language learners selected from one language institute. The selected sample received a creativity questionnaire and was divided into two groups based on their level of creativity. The more creative students were assigned to the experimental group and the less creative students were assigned to the control group. To measure the creativity levels of the participants, Torrance Test of Creative Thinking TTCT (Torrance, 1990) was administered. An Oxford Proficiency Test was also used to determine the students’ level of proficiency. Prior to the treatment, the participants in both groups took a pre-test on reading comprehension. As for the post-test, all participants of the study took a reading comprehension test to see if their scores on the reading comprehension test made any improvement. Finally, both groups' achievements in the reading comprehension were compared to examine the potential effect of creativity on using cognitive strategies applied on this skill. Findings suggested that the two variables of the creativity level of the participants of the experimental group and their use of cognitive strategies in reading comprehension are significantly and directly related. The results indicate that there is a significant relationship between the creativity level of the participants and the extent to which they apply cognitive strategies in their reading comprehension tasks.