Gender and Language Learning Strategy Use among University EFL Learners: Evidence from Karakoram International University, Gilgit-Baltistan

Abstract

Language learning strategies (LLSs) are the conscious or potentially conscious actions, techniques, and mental processes learners employ to understand, retain, retrieve, and use a second or foreign language. Although strategy research has repeatedly examined gender as a learner variable, findings have not been consistent across contexts. The present paper revisits a small-scale study conducted among undergraduate English learners at Karakoram International University (KIU), Gilgit-Baltistan, with particular attention to gender and the reported use of cognitive, metacognitive, affective, compensatory, and memory strategies. The study employed a quantitative survey design and a modified form of Oxford’s Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL). The study employed simple random sampling and from thirty-eight participants twenty participants were selected (ten males and ten females) through simple random sampling. The analyzable dataset presented in the original tables consists of ten male and ten female respondents. Responses to 15 strategy items were grouped into five strategy categories and summarized through frequency factors and percentages. The results show a highly similar pattern for the two groups across metacognitive, affective, and compensatory strategies. Females showed a slightly higher share of cognitive strategy use (50.85%) than males (49.15%), whereas males showed a substantially higher share of memory strategy use (60%) than females (40%). Thus, the data do not support a simple claim that one gender generally uses more LLSs than the other. Instead, gender differences appear to be strategy-specific. The paper argues that this pattern is consistent with research cautioning against treating gender as a universal predictor of strategy choice. Pedagogically, the findings support strategy instruction that expands learners’ repertoires rather than assigning particular strategies to men or women. The paper also identifies methodological limitations in the original study, including the small sample, reliance on self-report, absence of inferential statistics, and inconsistencies in the reported sample size. These limitations are important when interpreting the findings and designing future research in Pakistani university contexts.