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Introduction |
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In the broadest sense, metacognitive ability is the degree to which a person is able to think about his or her own thinking (Jacobs & Paris, 1987). Flavell (1979) provides a useful definition of metacognition and defines it as “knowledge and cognition about cognitive phenomena” (pg. 906). Arslan and Akin (2014) provide a more nuanced definition of metacognition and describe it as the “knowledge, awareness, and deeper understanding of one’s own cognitive processes and products,” and it may be “expanded through reflection on learning experiences” (pg. 33). The definition of metacognition is complex and under debate, but at its core, metacognition is thinking about thinking. It is important
to note that the computational power of the human brain is not
unlimited. Attention or “the mental
energy used to perceive, think, and understand” is limited (Bruning et al. 2011, pg. 15); however, as Bruning et al. (2011) points out, this limit may be
stretched by increasing metacognitive ability and using “capacity saving”
strategies. For example, “chunking” is
a way of summarizing and organizing information to facilitate knowledge
transfer and recall as well as conserving mental resources (Miller, 1994). That being said, the metacognitive
abilities of students within an educational system cannot be ignored given
the fact that “metacognition plays an important role in oral communication of
information, oral persuasion, oral comprehension, reading comprehension,
writing, language acquisition, attention, memory, problem solving, social
cognition, and, various types of self-control and self-instruction” (Flavell, 1979, pg. 906).
Because attention is limited, it is important to understand
metacognition and strategies to efficiently use one’s own working
memory. The purpose the current study
is to highlight the importance of metacognition in education, or more
specifically, to describe its impact on students’ competencies in reading,
mathematics and science. “In many studies, measures of metacognition,
self-regulation, and self-regulated learning are not linked with measures of
students’ learning or achievement,” (Schunk, 2008,
pg. 466) and when they are, the results are mixed (Schraw,
2000; Sperling et al., 2002; Sperling et al., 2004; Sperling et al.,
2012; Vo et al., 2014; Zion et al., 2005). The
proposed study aims to make that link and accurately describe the effects of
metacognition on students’ plausible values in reading, mathematics and
science by answering the following research questions: 1. Do metacognitive strategies account for a significant proportion of variability in students’ plausible values reading, math and science competencies in the United States? 2. Is one component of metacognitive ability (UNDREM or METASUM) a better predictor of students’ plausible values reading, math and science competency than the other? 3. Does the perceived usefulness of metacognitive strategies differ across the following domains: reading, mathematics, and science? In order to describe the effects of metacognition in education, the perceived usefulness of metacognitive strategies of students within schools in the United states was assessed and its impact on students’ plausible values in reading, mathematics and science competencies using data taken from the 2009 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA). Metacognition in Education Self-regulated learning encompasses metacognition and is the degree to with students “are metacognitively, motivationally, and behaviorally active participants in their own learning processes” (Zimmerman, 2014, pg. 137). Students who set goals, monitor their learning, and effectively use strategies attain “mastery more quickly” and are more motivated to learn (Zimmerman, 2014). Metacognitive monitoring or the ability to reflect on what and how one learns is a desirable quality in every student (Hoogeveen & van Gelderen, 2013). Rather than being passive, consumers of information, students with high levels of metacognitive ability are active seekers and processors of information. In addition, students with high levels of metacognitive ability have the skills needed to regulate, rehearse and organize new information that needs to be learned as well as the ability to monitor their understanding during the process of encoding that new information (Schunk, 2008). High achievers tend to be more efficient in their use of metacognitive strategies and are better able to distinguish between answerable and unanswerable questions on an exam (Krebs & Roebers, 2012). On the other hand, students with low levels of metacognitive ability overestimate their knowledge and therefore study and learn less than those with higher levels of metacognitive ability (Vo, Li, Kornell, Pouget, & Cantlon, 2014). Positive correlations exist between metacognition, strategy use and motivations, (Sperling, Howard, Staley, & DuBois, 2004) and students are likely to benefit from an increased metacognitive ability in all subjects including reading, mathematics and science. Reading. “Awareness and monitoring of one’s
comprehension processes are critically important aspects of skilled reading”
and awareness and monitoring are commonly referred to as components of
metacognition which may be considered to be “readers’ cognition about reading
and the self-control mechanisms” when discussing competency in reading (Mokhtari & Reichard, 2002,
pg. 249). Skilled readers tend to have
high metacognitive abilities suggesting that they know what they are reading,
have strategies for handling any potential problems they may encounter, and
monitor their comprehension of textual information. In addition, good readers know more about
reading strategies, detect more errors when reading and have a more accurate
memories of what they read compared to poor readers (Jacobs & Paris,
1987). Jacobs and Paris (1987)
conclude by stating “metacognitive instruction can improve children’s
awareness and understanding of reading strategies” (pg. 274). It appears that a positive correlation
exists between metacognition and reading ability. Because of this, it is hypothesized that
the perceived usefulness of metacognitive strategies will be a positive and
significant predictor of students’ plausible values in reading. Mathematics. Similar to reading, students with
strong metacognitive abilities also tend to have increased mathematics
knowledge. Vo et al. (2014)
demonstrated how metacognition is correlated with a mathematics test score in
children as young as five years of age.
More importantly, Vo et al. (2014) conclude that metacognitive
monitoring is not a global ability nor does it develop uniformly across
domains suggesting that the relation between metacognition mathematics
differs from the same person’s relation between metacognitive ability and
reading. Pilten
and Yener (2010) conducted a qualitative study that
corroborates the findings of Vo et al.
Findings from Pilten and Yener
(2010) suggest that metacognitive knowledge evolves over time and that it is
related success in solving non-routine mathematical problems in fifth-grade
students. Kramarski
and Mizrachi (2004) explained the benefits of increasing seventh-grade
students’ metacognitive ability in solving real-life mathematical tasks
through a forum discussion with metacognitive guidance. Students exposed to metacognitive guidance
used significantly more logical arguments and mathematical expressions, and
outperformed students who were not exposed to the guidance on mathematical
literacy. Because of this, it is
hypothesized that the perceived usefulness of metacognitive strategies will
be a positive and significant predictor of students’ plausible values in
mathematics. Science. Zion, Michalsky,
and Mevarech (2005) investigated the effects of
metacognitive training on students’ achievement in science. They conclude that the use of metacognitive
training enhances students’ achievements in science and provide suggestions
for improvement. Social collaboration,
reflection on stages, evaluation of peer work and online support offer
avenues to provide metacognitive guidance.
Student performance suffered in the absence of metacognitive
guidance. White and Frederiksen (1998) suggest that metacognitive knowledge
and skills may develop via scaffolding, generalization and reflection. Reflection is key and “provides an explicit
classroom activity that brings metacognition into the social processes of the
classroom, which enhances the acquisition of metacognitive knowledge and
skills” (White, & Frederiksen, 1998, pg.
79). Incorporating a reflection process
into the curriculum increased the quality of students’ research projects and
test performance. Because of this, it
is hypothesized that the perceived usefulness of metacognitive strategies
will be a positive and significant predictor of students’ plausible values in
mathematics. It is important to note some discrepancy between the domain specific and general metacognitive ability. Whereas Vo et al. (2014) conclude that metacognitive monitoring does not form uniformly across domains in five-year-old children, Zion, Michalsky, and Mevarech (2005) demonstrate how domain specific knowledge and general ability increase simultaneously, albeit not to the same degree, in older students with a mean age of 16.3. Given the findings from Pilten and Yener (2010) that suggest metacognitive knowledge evolves over time and the discrepancies between age groups, perhaps older students are better equipped to transfer metacognitive abilities across domains. 2009 Programme for International Student
Assessment (PISA) The 2009 Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) consists of a series of surveys administered to fifteen-year-old students in sixty-five countries. The major focus of PISA is to measure students’ overall competencies in reading, mathematics and science. The PISA assessment also includes contextual indicators related to school characteristics as well as student characteristics, family background and students’ perspectives. Previous Findings
from 2009 PISA. Bilican and Yildirim (2014) used
data taken from the 2009 Programme for
International Student Assessment to investigate the effect of metacognition
on student’s reading performance in Turkey.
They found that understanding and remembering (UNDREM) and summarizing
(METASUM) were significant predictors of reading performance. Students who used understanding,
remembering, and summarizing strategies outperformed those who used
memorization strategies. The
work by Kaur and Areepattamannil (2012) describe
additional benefits of metacognition and explored its influence on the
mathematical literacy of adolescents in Australia and Singapore using data
taken from PISA. They conclude that
metacognitive strategies have a positive influence on mathematical literacy
of Australian and Singaporean adolescents.
Similar to the findings of Bilican and Yildirim (2014) of memorization and reading performance,
the use of memorization strategies was negatively associated with
mathematical literacy. The current
study hopes to add to the work of Bilican and Yildirim (2014) and Kaur and Areepattamannil
(2012) by describing the effects of metacognition
on plausible values in reading, mathematics and science of students within
the United States. |