This mixed-methods correlational study investigated the relationship between metalinguistic awareness and academic performance among 150 Cebuano-English bilingual college students aged 18–21 from universities in Cebu, Philippines. The study examined how students' awareness and strategic use of multiple languages related to their academic success, particularly in reading comprehension and critical thinking. Data were gathered through metalinguistic awareness assessments, academic records, oral self-introductions, and qualitative interviews. Results revealed that while students showed strong reading comprehension in English, their writing and speaking frequently involved code-switching and language mixing. Statistical analysis indicated a moderate positive correlation (r = 0.42, p < 0.01) between metalinguistic awareness and overall academic performance, with higher awareness associated with more strategic language use and better academic out-comes across subjects. However, code-switching during formal writing and speaking negatively influenced comprehension scores in English-only assessments. Qualitative findings further showed that students with higher metalinguistic awareness could articulate reasons for their code-switching but continued to struggle with maintaining strict language separation in academic contexts. Notably, 73% of participants displayed balanced bilingual profiles, yet their comprehension declined when natural code-switching tendencies were restricted. These findings suggest that while metalinguistic awareness provides cognitive advantages for bilingual students, institutional expectations of monolingual performance may conflict with natural multilingual processing. The study highlights the importance of pedagogical approaches that recognize and leverage multilingual competencies, offering implications for curriculum design and assessment practices in Philippine higher education and other multilingual learning environments.
Pantonial et al. (Fri,) studied this question.