Globalization has established English as the dominant lingua franca in today’s interconnected world, integrating it into multiple domains of life, notably in higher education (Bound et al., 2021; Tight, 2021) The prevalence of English in higher education has led to numerous emerging challenges for students, especially for those whose first language is not English (Aldabbus, 2017). As a fundamental skill in higher education, this study is going to focus on the skill of reading (Aboud et al., 2019; Al-Jarrah & Ismail, 2018).

Reading can be even more challenging for non-native speakers studying in English; they often face difficulties engaging with academic texts, and that’s due to their insufficient linguistic knowledge and absence of reading strategies (Aldabbus 2017; Shehata 2019). In response, various initiatives aimed at improving reading skills. Among these, deploying metacognitive strategies have proven particularly effective (Brown, 2017; Grabe, 2009; Haukås et al., 2018).

Metacognition, the ability to reflect on, monitor, and regulate one’s cognitive processes, plays a key role in enhancing reading comprehension (Brown 2017; Haukås et al. 2018). Metacognition extends beyond mere awareness of one's cognitive processes to encompass a range of higher-order thinking skills and strategies. Metacognition refers to the knowledge about and regulation of one's cognitive activities in learning processes. It involves thinking about one's own thinking, including understanding what one knows and what one does not know, and effectively managing cognitive processes (Veenman, 2016; Veenman & van Cleef, 2019).

In metacognitive research, three main strategies were identified: global reading strategies, problem-solving strategies, and support reading strategies. Global Reading Strategies focus on guiding students to have a reading purpose in mind when reading a text. Problem-Solving Strategies involve the active and continual process of cognitive monitoring and evaluating reading activity when faced with. Support reading strategies are supplementary for the reading process: the use of a dictionary, using the mother tongue, reading images, the reading aloud technique, note-taking, and underlining (Mokhtari & Reichard, 2002; Muhid et al., 2020)

To enrich this topic, most previous research has retrieved data utilizing offline data (such as self-report questionnaires). Although such instruments are easy to administer and cover a range of metacognitive practices, they still lack validity (Csíkos, 2022). The issues arise from: 1, students may under or overestimate their awareness of these strategies (Veenman, 2016).  2, students may rely on their memory to answer the questionnaire questions. 3, students may remember strategies from the questionnaire. 4, students may opt to compare themselves to different people to answer the questions. (Veenman & van Cleef, 2019).

This paper chooses an eye-tracking paradigm to investigate students’ behaviour. Eye tracking is a valuable tool for studying reading by capturing where and how long readers fixate on text. In metacognitive strategy studies, eye tracking provides objective data on how readers monitor and regulate comprehension while reading. This approach bridges observed reading behaviors with self-reported strategies. By doing so, it uncovers detailed insights into the interaction between metacognition and reading performance (Brunfaut & McCray, 2015; Latimer, 2018).

This paper attempts to answer the following questions:

1. What metacognitive reading strategies do international readers in Hungary's English-taught programs report being aware of and what variations can be identified with students’ level of English proficiency, academic level, mother tongue, and field of study?
2. What insights can be derived from eye-tracking data about students' metacognitive reading behavior, and how do these insights align with students' self-reported responses?

Design: Quantitative design. Participants: 150 participants in the self-report questionnaire (there were 80 males and 70 females, with ages ranging from 17 to 42 years (M = 26.51, SD = 5.4). The participants represented a diverse array of nationalities, all non-native English speakers. Regarding their educational levels, the majority were pursuing master's degrees (48%), followed by bachelor's (29.3%) and doctoral (22.7%) degrees. Data were collected using the Metacognitive Awareness of Reading Strategies Inventory: MARSI-R (Mokhtari et al. 2018), which assesses various strategies such as global reading strategies, problem-solving strategies, and support reading strategies which include sub-strategies like setting reading purposes, previewing texts, selective reading speed, as well as others. To check the extent to which different variable, namely English proficiency, academic level, native language, and academic background) affect the perceived awareness of metacognitive reading strategies, Kruskal-Wallis tests were employed as they are non-parametric and do no assume normality and homogeneity of variance (Ostertagova et al., 2014). The analysis involved investigating the composite score as well as the scores of each subskill per se: global reading strategies (GRS), problem solving strategies (PSS), and support reading strategies (SRS). To complement the self-reported data, fifteen participants completed a reading test while their eye movements were tracked using a Tobii Pro eye tracker. This eye-tracking provided objective data on reading behaviors, namely fixation durations, regressions, and patterns of attention allocation. The analysis involved investigating 1. Fixation duration and fixation visits on questions, bolded words, correct answers, incorrect answers, sections asked about in the questions, and sections not asked about in the questions. Students also completed a reading test. The Cambridge B1 Preliminary Reading test includes six sections with different types of exercises that assess specific reading skills. Part 1 consists of multiple-choice questions requiring candidates to interpret short texts like signs, notices, or messages. Part 2 involves a matching task, where candidates pair descriptions of people’s needs with suitable options, such as accommodations. Part 3 includes multiple-choice questions based on a short passage, testing understanding of details, tone, and implications. Part 4 asks candidates to insert missing sentences into a text, assessing logical flow and coherence. Part 5 features a multiple-choice cloze task where candidates choose the correct word or phrase to complete gaps, focusing on vocabulary and grammar. Part 6 is a gap-fill exercise requiring single-word answers, assessing grammar and contextual understanding. These exercises test comprehension, inference, text organization, and language use.

In conclusion, this study highlights the importance of integrating metacognitive strategy instruction into educational curricula, particularly for non-native speakers in tertiary education. By fostering an awareness of how students plan, monitor, and evaluate their reading processes, educators can help them become more effective readers. Future research might focus on explicitly teaching these strategies through targeted interventions and examining their long-term effects on students' reading behaviors. This could include studying how metacognitive instruction influences students' ability to approach complex texts, adapt their strategies to various reading contexts, and ultimately enhance their reading proficiency and academic success. Additionally, the study sheds light on the insights provided by online eye-tracking experiments, which offer valuable data on how students engage with and process written material in real-time. These findings could motivate further exploration into using eye-tracking to identify patterns, such as which sections of a text students struggle with or how they allocate attention to different parts of a document. Such research might encourage the use of this technology to design more personalized instructional methods, refine reading materials, and create assessments that align with students’ needs. Furthermore, these insights could inform the development of personalized exams that reflect students' unique reading behaviors, allowing educators to evaluate their comprehension and strategy use more effectively. By bridging the gap between behavioral observations and self-reported strategies, this approach could open new avenues for understanding and improving students’ reading behaviors in diverse educational contexts.

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