Résumé:
The present study seeks to explore the students’ use of cognitive and meta-cognitive strategies
in written test performance. To reach such an aim, the researcher has devised two
questionnaires for both teachers and students to collect data for this study. The first
questionnaire was administered to sixty master one students at the department of English
Language who were chosen randomly. It aims to identify the cognitive and meta-cognitive
strategies that master one students use in written tests. The second one was administered to
thirty-six language teachers at Guelma University to find out whether they are aware, and if
they try to raise their students’ awareness of the previously mentioned strategies. The
obtained results have proved that students do apply various types of cognitive and metacognitive
strategies. Also, the majority of teachers are unaware about the usage of cognitive
and meta-cognitive processes by test-takers and its efficacy in high quality writing production.
Therefore, the researcher ended up by recommending some suggestions and pedagogical
directions for both students and teachers in order to increase the importance of the
aforementioned strategies for better writing outcomes in tests and exams.
