Metacognition and Study Strategies

Learning Objectives:
At the end of the lesson, the students will be able to:
1. explain the role of metacognition concerning learning; and
2. identity their personal strategies in order to succeed their
academic struggles.

GET TO KNOW

What is Metacognition?
In the late 1970s, John Flavell originally coined the word “metacognition.”
He defined the word as cognition about the cognitive phenomenon, or thinking
about thinking. Further studies on metacognition described the term
comparative to Flavell’s meaning. Cross and Paris (1988) defined metacognition
as the knowledge and control children have over their thinking and learning
activities. For Hennessey (1999), metacognition is the awareness of one’s
thinking, awareness of the content of one’s conception, as active monitoring of
one’s cognitive processes, an attempt to regulate one’s cognitive processes in
relation to further learning, and an application of a set of heuristics as an
effective device for helping people organize their methods of attacks in general
(The Psychology Notes HQ, 2020).

Metacognition and cognitive strategies are sometimes used

interchangeably, but they have unique characteristics. These two are just
components of self-regulated learning, including motivation. Harris and Graham
(1999), Schraw, Crippen, and Hartley (2006), and Shunk (1996), defined self-
regulated learning as one’s ability to understand and control one’s learning
environment. Self-regulation abilities include goal setting, self-monitoring, self-
instruction, and self-reinforcement. A self-regulated learning is also different
from the mental ability or academic performance skill. Zimmerman, Bonnor,
and Kovach (2002) further explained that a self-regulated learning is a self-
directive process and set of behaviors whereby learners transform their mental
abilities into skills. Butler (2002) noted that a self-regulated learning is a
developed habit via a developmental process, which emerges from guided
practice and feedback (as cited in Shuy, OVAE, & TEAL Staff, 2010).
 Here are some clear cut definitions of the distinctions of the three
components of self-regulated learning (cited in Shuy, OVAE, & TEAL Staff, 2010).
• Cognition Component includes the skills and habits that are necessary
to encode, memorize, and recall information as well as think critically;
• Metacognition component are skills that enable learners to understand
and monitor their cognitive processes; and
• Motivation component surfaces the beliefs and attitudes that affect the
use and development of both the cognitive and metacognitive skills

Metacognitive Knowledge has three components (The Psychology Notes HQ, 2020).

1. Metacognitive knowledge refers to the awareness individuals possess

about themselves and other people as cognitive processors. In other
words, it refers to what learners know about learning. This includes the
learner’s knowledge of their own cognitive abilities (e.g., I have difficulty
in mathematical ability); the learner’s knowledge of particular tasks (e.g.,
To what extend I know this mathematical problem); and the learner’s
knowledge of different strategies that are available to them and when they
are appropriate to the task (e.g., Studying ahead and by outlining some
notes from the book would help the learners understand better and could
now easily recall the key terms) (Campbridge Assessment International
Education, n.d.).
2. Metacognitive regulation has to do with learners’ control over cognition
and learning experiences through a set of methods that help learners
regulate their learning. Or what learners do about learning. Thus the
learners, in this case, monitor or regulate their cognitive process. For
instance, studying by reading is not an effective strategy; thus, the learner
here tries to look for a better strategy to achieve its desired results
(Campbridge Assessment International Education, n.d.).
3. Metacognitive experiences involve cognitive efforts that are currently
taking place.

Metacognitive knowledge also has three types (The Psychology Notes HQ, 2020).
1. Declarative knowledge refers to the factual information that one knows
and can both be spoken or written. This is also the knowledge about
oneself as a learner and about what factors can influence one’s
performance.
2. Procedural knowledge comprises information on how to do something or
how to perform the procedural steps that make up a task. A high degree
of procedural knowledge allows individuals to perform tasks more
automatically through a variety of strategies.
3. Conditional knowledge refers to the knowledge about when to use a
procedure, skill, or strategy or when not to, information as to why a
procedure works and under what conditions it works, in addition to why
one procedure is better than another. Such knowledge affords the
individual a chance to assign resources when using strategies.
 Skills of Metacognitive Regulation are important to be recognized by the
learners to succeed and become more effective, which strictly follows a phase (The
Psychology Notes HQ, 2020).

• Planning involves a
suitable selection of
strategies and the
right assignment of
resources.
• Monitoring includes
awareness of
understanding and
task performance.
• Evaluating refers to
the assessment of the
final result of a task
and the efficiency
carried out during
task performance.

In connection to academic requirements and demands, during the planning

phase, the learners think about the learning goal and start to deliberate in mind to
choose specific schemes to use to deal the task has set for them by their teacher. At
this phase, it is helpful that learners ask themselves what they are supposed to do,
what strategies they shall use, and may also recall if they already had previously used
some strategies that might be helpful to their current task. During the monitoring
phase, learners may now take their initiative to implement their plan and monitor the
progress towards their learning goal. The learners this time should also start quizzing
if the strategy they used is working or initially taking its steps leading to the learning
goal. This is necessary for learners to discover something different and more
appropriate strategies. The last phase is evaluation, a time where learners determine
how effective the strategy they used. A careful assessment is crucial if the strategy they
used was helping them to achieve their learning goal. Learners may ask themselves if
how well did they do or what didn’t go well, and how they are supposed to deal it. May
also ask other people to validate their actions taken (Campbridge Assessment
International Education, n.d.)
A study on Assessing Metacognitive Awareness by Schraw and Dennison
(1994), five subprocesses were identified that facilitate the control aspect of learning
or the regulation of cognition which is comparative to the phase of skills of
metacognition mentioned previously. These are planning, information management
system, comprehension monitoring, debugging strategies, and evaluation (Schraw, G.
& Dennison, R.S. , 1994). See Activity Sheet No. 29 for its descriptions.

According to Bee and Boyd (2007), there are four important strategies
used in developing metacognition: rehearsal, clustering, elaboration, and
systematic searching (as cited in Aquino, 2015).
1. Rehearsal
• It is the conscious repetition of information cover and over so that such
information will dwell in the long term memory system. Rehearsal can be
basic or complex. Basic rehearsal refers to simple recall and
 memorization. On the other hand, complex rehearsal requires more
thinking, such as important underlying words or key phrases or deciding
what is significant in the written text. Rehearsal has its two types:
maintenance rehearsal and elaborative rehearsal. Maintenance rehearsal
refers to a low-level, repetitive kind of information practice. It is simply
repeatedly thinking about or verbalizing a piece of information. For
example, we need the telephone number of certain fast food for delivery.
Normally, we rehearse the number first until we successfully dialled the
phone. However, once we stop practicing rehearsing the number, that bits
of information will dislodge from our memory because we do not store or
process deeply into our long-term memory system. This means that any
information that we take in and are not practiced continuously or used,
the probabilities of forgetting is high. Elaborate rehearsal is more
complex than maintenance rehearsal. In this process, after we rehearse
and make use of the information we take in, pondering upon the meaning
of the term, making connections to our previous and current experiences,
citing personal examples and illustrations are being applied for us to fully
grasps the meaning of such information.
• Rehearsal strategies have various activities as identified below:
- Selecting
- Note-taking
- Predicting and clarifying
- Underlining or highlighting
- Questioning and answering
- Restating and Paraphrasing
- Outlining and Summarizing
- Repetition and cumulative rehearsal
2. Clustering
• It is where information is grouped and organized to simplest and
meaningful way. This is commonly used to provide us an ordering process
like sequences, hierarchies, and categories. Clustering of information is
based on those that share common characteristics.
3. Elaboration.
• This occurs when we enrich new information by adding extra information
from our own schema. Sometimes we tend to expand the main information
by relating it other information. Elaboration can also be done either verbal
or image elaboration. Verbal elaboration refers to the construction of
additional ideas using words that we might say or write. Examples are
summarization, self-questioning, analogy, mnemonics, or note-taking.
Image elaboration is concerned with forming and creating mental
pictures that combines new information with visual image, nevertheless
existing already in our own schema. The very purpose of elaboration
strategy is to extend our knowledge and to give details about something
or to work out something in details.
4. Systematic Searching
• Systematic searching accounts for two different ways: semantic formation
and association. Semantic formation happens when the learners
develop meaning from certain experiences. Association happens when
the learners search for the information that is related to something
familiar, resembles its figure, and or sound with it. Associating the
information to our personal experiences makes it more meaningful.

Benefits of Metacognition to College Students

Metacognition is a helpful tip for students on how to become
independent or self-regulated in their own learning process. Through
metacognition, students may realize which study strategies are working
and which are not. If students would take this by heart and reflectively
in thinking about how they think and learn, students would then learn
to monitor their own progress and take control of their learning as they
read, write, and solve problems relating to the ir academic
requirements. Nonetheless, this should be noted that metacognition is
somewhat elusive in a sense that there is no exactly the same study
strategies for every individual. What is common here is to understand
the key process of metacognition that is to take an inventory on
thinking about what we already know, what is working and what is not,
and evaluating how far we have mastered the mater ials or strategies
we are using. By then, it helps us become a self-aware problem solvers
(The Learning Center, University of North Carolina , n.d.)