Metacognition is the understanding of your own knowledge including what knowledge you do not have and what knowledge you do have. This includes knowledge of strategies and regulation of one’s own cognition. Studying metacognition is important because higher-order thinking is commonly used, and problem-solving skills are positively correlated with metacognition. A positive previous disposition to metacognition can improve problem-solving skills. Metacognition is a key skill in design and manufacturing, as teams of engineers must solve complex problems. Moreover, metacognition increases individual and team performance and can lead to more original ideas. This study discusses the assessment of metacognitive skills in engineering students by having the students participate in hands-on and virtual reality activities related to design and manufacturing. The study is guided by two research questions: (1) do the proposed activities affect students’ metacognition in terms of monitoring, awareness, planning, self-checking, or strategy selection, and (2) are there other components of metacognition that are affected by the design and manufacturing activities? The hypothesis is that the participation in the proposed activities will improve problem-solving skills and metacognitive awareness of the engineering students. A total of 34 undergraduate students participated in the study. Of these, 32 were male and 2 were female students. All students stated that they were interested in pursuing a career in engineering. The students were divided into two groups with the first group being the initial pilot run of the data. In this first group there were 24 students, in the second group there were 10 students. The groups’ demographics were nearly identical to each other. Analysis of the collected data indicated that problem-solving skills contribute to metacognitive skills and may develop first in students before larger metacognitive constructs of awareness, monitoring, planning, self-checking, and strategy selection. Based on this, we recommend that the problem-solving skills and expertise in solving engineering problems should be developed in students before other skills emerge or can be measured. While we are sure that the students who participated in our study have awareness as well as the other metacognitive skills in reading, writing, science, and math, they are still developing in relation to engineering problems.
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“Oh, that makes sense”: Social Metacognition in Small-Group Problem Solving
Stronger metacognition, or awareness and regulation of thinking, is related to higher academic achievement. Most metacognition research has focused at the level of the individual learner. However, a few studies have shown that students working in small groups can stimulate metacognition in one another, leading to improved learning. Given the increased adoption of interactive group work in life science classrooms, there is a need to study the role of social metacognition, or the awareness and regulation of the thinking of others, in this context. Guided by the frameworks of social metacognition and evidence-based reasoning, we asked: 1) What metacognitive utterances (words, phrases, statements, or questions) do students use during small-group problem solving in an upper-division biology course? 2) Which metacognitive utterances are associated with small groups sharing higher-quality reasoning in an upper-division biology classroom? We used discourse analysis to examine transcripts from two groups of three students during breakout sessions. By coding for metacognition, we identified seven types of metacognitive utterances. By coding for reasoning, we uncovered four categories of metacognitive utterances associated with higher-quality reasoning. We offer suggestions for life science educators interested in promoting social metacognition during small-group problem solving.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1942318
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10350964
- Editor(s):
- Gardner, Stephanie
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- CBE—Life Sciences Education
- Volume:
- 21
- Issue:
- 3
- ISSN:
- 1931-7913
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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The Effect of Metacognitive Judgments on Metacognitive Awareness in an Augmented Reality EnvironmentBeing conscious of your thought processes is known as metacognition. It supports students in being more aware of their actions, motivations, and the potential applications of the skills [1]. This study investigates how different metacognitive judgment questions affect students’ metacognitive awareness in an augmented reality (AR) environment. The outcomes of this study will help us to understand what metacognitive monitoring method is more effective in the AR learning environment. According to the literature, students with high knowledge about cognition have higher test performance, while students with low regulation have a challenge during planning, organizing, and elaborating strategies. The dependent variables of the study are student learning performance and metacognitive awareness inventory (MAI) score, and one independent variable is the metacognitive judgment question Retrospective Confidence Judgment (RCJ) and Judgment of Learning (JOL). We hypothesized that the students with high performance would have improved MAI scores in both groups. The experiment was done with two groups (RCJ and JOL). Both groups responded to the pre-post metacognitive awareness inventory questionnaire. During the experiment, the MAI questionnaire was asked two times. In round one, the MAI questionnaire was asked at the beginning of lecture one; however, in round two, the questionnaire was asked at the end of lecture two. Results indicated significant differences in RCJ low performers. In RCJ, the participants whose performance was significantly reduced in lecture 2 had a higher improvement on MAI both regulation and knowledge about cognition. Overall, the result of our study could advance our understanding of how to design an advanced instructional strategy in an AR environment.more » « less
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Abstract Background The use of metacognition is critical to learning, especially in fields such as engineering that involve problem‐solving and difficult conceptual material. Due to limitations with current methodological approaches, new methods are needed to investigate engineering students' metacognitive engagement in learning situations that are self‐directed, such as study groups.
Purpose Our purpose was to develop an approach to investigate the metacognitive engagement of undergraduate engineering students in self‐directed learning environments. The Naturalistic Observations of Metacognition in Engineering (NOME) Observational Protocol and Coding Strategy is a qualitative data collection method that allows researchers to observe the behaviors of students who are studying in groups to determine the student's engagement in different metacognitive practices. The NOME is intended to be used by researchers interested in studying online metacognitive behaviors without the direct interference of a methodological approach.
Design/Method We observed three study groups where students were working on an engineering problem‐solving homework assignment. Using a taxonomic definition of metacognition, we coded episodes of observation transcripts to identify behaviors that represented key definitions in the taxonomy.
Results We combined subcodes and descriptions of behaviors with key definitions to develop a coding strategy useful for future observational studies. Evidence of intercoder agreement and agreement in unitizing indicates that the coding strategy can reliably be used by multiple trained coders to identify metacognitive engagement.
Conclusions The reliability evidence shows that the NOME may be a useful tool for researchers in engineering education interested in studying the metacognitive habits of engineering students in self‐directed study.
- Free Publicly Accessible Full Text
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Accepted Manuscript1.0
- Journal Article:
- https://doi.org/10.1187/cbe.22-01-0009
