Self-regulated learning based on Bandura's (1997) learning theory, is the ability to understand and control learning environment (Schraw, Crippen & Hartley, 2006).  Self-regulated learning consists of three main components. These are cognition, metacognition, and motivation. Cognition includes the necessary abilities to code, remember and recall information.  Metacognition, on the other hand, deals with understanding and monitoring cognitive processes. Motivation covers attitudes and beliefs which affect the development and use of cognitive and metacognitive processes. 

Metacognition is subdivided into two main components, which are knowledge of cognition and regulation of cognition. Knowledge of cognition means to be what we know about our own cognition. Regulation of cognition has three components. These are planning, monitoring and evaluation (Schraw & Moshman, 1995).

Science education literature suggested that metacognition is important to improve the science learning in classrooms (Baird & White, 1996; Beeth, 1998).  The current literature suggests that students with higher metacognitive awareness are more strategic and successful in cognitive enterprise. According to Schraw and Dennison (1994), this can be attributed to the fact that metacognitive awareness helps students plan, monitor and evaluate their learning, increasing their performance directly.  Swanson (1990) stated that the differences strategy and performance resulted from the differences in metacognitive awareness, rather than mental abilities. So, these findings show that metacognition acts as compansation for cognitive performance, improving the use of strategy.   Similar findings have also been found out by Pajares and Graham (1999).

Moreover, there are also studies investigating the change of metacognitive awareness in accordance with gender factor.  For instance, Miller (2000) found out that girls have more metacognitive skills in Mathematics compared to boys.  

In this study, we investigated that whether there is a relationship between students' metacognitive awareness and their attitudes towards Chemistry, their academic achievement and gender. The main research question in this study is to find an answer is given below:

 Is there a relationship between students' metacognitive awareness and their attitudes towards chemistry, their academic achievement and gender?

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