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Title: Student Use of Anchors and Metacognitive Strategies in Reflection
Self-regulation, a skillset involving taking charge of one’s own learning processes, is crucial for workplace success. Learners develop self-regulation skills through reflection where they recognize weaknesses and strengths by employing metacognitive strategies: planning, monitoring, and evaluating. Use of anchors assists learners’ engagement in reflection. The purpose of this work was to gain insight into students’ use of anchors when reflecting on their learning. The two research questions were: (1) To what extent do students link their self-evaluation and learning objective (LO) self-ratings to their reflections? and (2) What dimensions and level of metacognitive strategies do students use in their self-evaluation of and reflections on weekly problem-solving assignments? Data were upper-division engineering students’ anchors (self- evaluations, LO self-ratings) and reflection responses for one assignment. Self-evaluations and reflections were analyzed for the presence of references to LOs. The number of students who linked the anchors to their reflection were tabulated. Additionally, a revised a priori coding scheme was applied to students’ written work to determine type and level of metacognitive strategies employed. Few students linked both anchors to their reflections. Students employed low to medium levels of the metacognitive strategies in their self-evaluations and reflections, even when they linked their anchors and reflections. The evaluating strategy dominated in the self- evaluations, while planning and monitoring dominated in the reflections. Students have limited understanding of the use of anchors to guide their reflection responses. Students overall level of engagement in the metacognitive strategies indicates a need for formal instruction on reflection.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
2235227
PAR ID:
10506939
Author(s) / Creator(s):
;
Publisher / Repository:
Research in Engineering Education Symposium
Date Published:
Subject(s) / Keyword(s):
metacognition, reflection learning objectives
Format(s):
Medium: X
Location:
Hubballi, India
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
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