The Role of Metacognitive Awareness in Academic Performance
Author(s):
Funda Aslan (presenting / submitting) Burcu Ulutas Basri Atasoy
Conference:
ECER 2012
Network:
21. Emerging Researchers' Group (for presentation at Emerging Researchers' Conference)
Format:
Paper

Session Information

ERG SES B 12, Higher Education / Academic Performance

Parallel Paper Session

Time:
2012-09-17
11:00-12:30
Room:
FCEE - Aula 4.4
Chair:
Laurent Cosnefroy

Contribution

Metacognition term was used as first “metamemory” by Flavell (1976). Flavell (1976) defined metacognition as awareness, control and regulate of one’s own cognition and cognitive processes. Metacognition is subdivided into two main components, which are knowledge of cognition and regulation of cognition. Knowledge of cognition refers what we know about our own cognition. Knowledge of cognition includes three subcomponents: (1) declarative knowledge that knowledge about ourselves as learners, (2) procedural knowledge that knowledge about strategies and (3) conditional knowledge that knowledge about why and when to use strategy (Schraw, 1998). Regulation of cognition includes activities that help students control their learning. 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 metacognition acts as compensation for cognitive performance, improving the use of strategy.

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

Is there a relationship between students' metacognitive awareness and their academic achievement?

How well do metacognitive awareness subcomponents predict academic achievement?

Method

The participants included 300 prospective teachers who were enrolled in the Department of Biology, Chemistry and Physics Education in a state university in Turkey. Convenience sampling method was used and the study was carried out in the university where the researchers worked. Correlational research method was used in this study. This study investigated metacognitive awareness and its relationship with the variables of academic achievement, gender, grade and domain. Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (MAI) developed by Schraw and Dennison (1994) and adapted into Turkish by Abacı, Çetin and Akın (2007), was used to attain the students' metacognitive awareness scores, one of the variables in the study. This inventory is a 5-point Likert scale. The inventory consists of two components, the knowledge of cognition and the regulation of cognition. And also the inventory consists of eight subcomponents: (1) declarative knowledge, (2) procedural knowledge, (3) conditional knowledge, (4) planning, (5) information management strategies, (6) monitoring, (7) debugging and (8) evaluation of learning. The reliability coefficient (α) is .95. The other variable investigated in this study is academic achievement. Students' general academic scores were used to determine their academic achievement.

Expected Outcomes

The study is still on progress. The grades necessary to determine the academic achievement will be provided when the first semester of the education year is over. Analysis will be done in a month because the data on academic achievement is not available now.

References

Akın, A., Abacı, R., & Çetin, B. (2007). The Validity and reliability of the turkish version of the metacognitive awareness inventory. Educational Sciences: Theory & Practice, 7(2), 671-678. Baird, J.R.,&White, R.T. (1996). Metacognitive strategies in the classroom. In: D.F. Treagust R. Duit& B.J. Fraser (Eds.), Improving teaching and learning in science and mathematics (pp. 190–200). New York: Teachers College Press. Beeth, M. E. (1998). Teaching for conceptual change: Using status as a metacognitive tool. Science Education, 82 (3), 343-356. Flavell, J. H. (1976). Metacognitive aspects of problem solving. In: The Nature of Intelligence. Resnick, Lauren B (ed.) p.233 Lawrence Erlbaum Associates Schraw, G. & Sperling-Dennison, R. (1994). Assessing metacognitive awareness. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 19, 460-470. Schraw, G. (1998). Promoting general metacognitive awareness. Instructional Science, 26, 113-125. Schraw, G., and Moshman, D. (1995) Metacognitive Theories. Educational Psychology Review 7, 4, 351-371. Swanson, H. L. (1990). Influence of metacognitive knowledge and aptitude on problem solving. Journal of Educational Psychology, 82(2), 306–314.

Author Information

Funda Aslan (presenting / submitting)
Gazi University, Turkey
Burcu Ulutas
Gazi University, Turkey
Basri Atasoy
Gazi University, Turkey

Update Modus of this Database

The current conference programme can be browsed in the conference management system (conftool) and, closer to the conference, in the conference app.
This database will be updated with the conference data after ECER. 

Search the ECER Programme

  • Search for keywords and phrases in "Text Search"
  • Restrict in which part of the abstracts to search in "Where to search"
  • Search for authors and in the respective field.
  • For planning your conference attendance, please use the conference app, which will be issued some weeks before the conference and the conference agenda provided in conftool.
  • If you are a session chair, best look up your chairing duties in the conference system (Conftool) or the app.