Universal Journal of Educational Research 4(1): 165-172, 2016 http://www.hrpub.org DOI: 10.13189/ujer.2016.040121 A Study on the Metacognitive Awareness of Secondary School Students Sajna Jaleel*, Premachandran. P School of Pedagogical Sciences, M.G University, India Copyright © 2016 by authors, all rights reserved. Authors agree that this article remains permanently open access under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 International License Abstract Metacognition means “thinking about one’s meta’ when talking about metacognition, referring to the own thinking”. There are two aspects of metacognition: - process of stepping back to see what you are doing, as if you reflection- thinking about what we know and self-regulation- were someone else observing it. “Going meta” means managing how we go about learning. Taking together, these becoming an audience of your own performance- in this case, processes make up an important aspect of learning and your own intellectual performance. development. Developing these metacognitive abilities is not “Metacognition was originally referred to as the simply about becoming reflective learners, but about knowledge about and regulation of one’s own cognitive acquiring specific learning strategies as well. Metacognitive activities in learning processes” [3](Flavell, 1979; Brown, beliefs, metacognitive awareness, metacognitive experiences, 1978). metacognitive knowledge, metacognitive skills, executive “Metacognition involves awareness of how they learn, an skills, higher-order skills, metacomponents, metamemory evaluation of their learning needs, generating strategies to [4] are some of the terms that we are often using in association meet these needs and then implementing the strategies” with metacognition. Metacognitive awareness means being (Hacker, 2009). aware of how you think. Metacognition is the awareness of Metacognition is most commonly divided into two distinct, one’s thinking and the strategies one is using. It enables but interrelated areas. John flavell, one of the first students to be more mindful of what they are doing, and why, researchers in metacognition and memory, defined these two and of how the skills they are learning might be used areas as metacognitive knowledge- awareness of one’s differently in different situations. The investigators in this thinking- and metacognitive regulation- the ability to paper try to analyze the metacognitive awareness of manage one’s own thinking processes. These two components are used together to inform learning theory. secondary school students. The investigators use a [3] standardized awareness inventory for checking the Flavell (1979) describes three kinds of metacognitive metacognitive awareness of secondary school students. The knowledge: study tries to find out whether there exists any significant Awareness of knowledge- it involves understanding difference between the various sub samples Gender, Locality what one knows, what one does not know, and what one and Type of Management of school based on their wants to know. This category may also include an metacognitive awareness. The investigators use appropriate awareness of other’s knowledge. statistical techniques for the data collection and analysis of Awareness of thinking- understanding cognitive tasks the data. and the nature of what is required to complete them. Awareness of thinking strategies- understanding Keywords Metacognitive Awareness, Metacognitive approaches to direct learning. Awareness Scale, Secondary School Students Questions that explicitly help students think about, “How do I study best?” or “What kinds of tools help me learn?” all engage metacognitive knowledge. This can range from information that helps students assess their own abilities and 1. Introduction intelligences to reflections on specific learning processes students tends to use in different situations. Metacognitive Meta cognition is often referred to as “thinking about regulation involves the ability to think strategically and to thinking”. Metacognition is a regulatory System that helps a solve problems, set goals, organize ideas, and evaluate what person understand and control his or her own cognitive is known and not known. It also involves the ability to teach performance. Metacognition allows people to take charge of to others and make thinking process visible. their own learning. sometimes people use the phrase ‘going When a student has information about his thinking, he is 166 A Study on the Metacognitive Awareness of Secondary School Students able to use this information to direct or regulate his learning. sites, with particular emphasis on the use of recognizable This kind of metacognition is also referred to as “executive conventions, in order to reduce the metacognitive demands control”. Successful learners typically use metacognitive upon working memory involved in deciphering the structure. strategies whenever they learn. But they may fail to use the Ellery (2008) found that Strategic and well-planned use of best strategy for each type of learning situation. Here are feedback in the assessment process is key to promoting some metacognitive skills that each student may follow. learning. The author evaluated the role a two-stage test Knowing your limits - knowing the limits of one’s process played in guiding and assisting student learning in a own memory for a particular task and creating a means second-year module at the University of KwaZulu-Natal, of external support. South Africa. Having been provided with verbal and written Self-monitoring – self-monitoring one’s learning feedback without grades from the first test, students were strategy, such as concept mapping, and then adapting given the opportunity to write a different, second test, and the strategy if it is not effective. each was required to choose which one was graded. Students Modify – noticing whether one comprehend something were generally very positive about the assessment process, one just read and then modifying approach if one did most participated willingly and fully, many learned not comprehend it. differently for the second test, and there was evidence of Skimming – choosing to skim subheadings of meta-cognitive awareness and understanding. Despite this, a unimportant information to get to the information one number of students experienced difficulty and frustration in need. judging the quality of their work. Rehearsing – repeatedly rehearsing a skill in order to Oviatt & Cohen (2010) discussed about educational gain proficiency. interfaces that facilitate communicative actions involving Self-test – periodically doing self-tests to see how well representations central to a domain can maximize students' you learned something. effort associated with constructing new schemas. High school students' ability to solve a diverse range of biology Need and Significance of the Study problems was compared over longitudinal sessions while Generally we do not know what we are doing when we do they used: (1) hardcopy paper and pencil (2) a digital paper it, but it is very hard to improve a process that we are and pen interface (3) pen tablet interface, and (4) graphical engaged in if we do not have a sense of what we are doing in tablet interface. Post-test evaluations revealed that time to the moment. If one aim of schooling is to prepare children to solve problems, meta-cognitive control, solution correctness, be lifelong learners, then it is important to help students and memory all were significantly enhanced when using the become aware of themselves as learners and to take control digital pen and paper interface, compared with tablet of their own activities. The vast majority of students interfaces. The tangible pen and paper interface also was the spontaneously pick up metacognitive knowledge and skills only alternative that significantly facilitated skill acquisition to a certain extent from their parents, their peers and in low-performing students. Paradoxically, all students especially from their teachers. However students show a nonetheless believed that the tablet interfaces provided best considerable variation in their metacognitive ability. support for their performance, revealing a lack of Learners often show an increase in self-confidence when self-awareness about how to use computational tools to best they build metacognitive skills. Self-efficacy improves advantage. motivation as well as learning success. Belet & Guven (2011) designed the study as a descriptive Schwartz & et.al (2004) freely explored a science Web site survey study in order to determine primary education teacher structured either in an outline (linear) format or "puzzle" trainees' epistemological beliefs; the use of metacognitive (non-linear) format for 2.5 hours. Subjects then engaged in strategies; and the relationship between epistemological tasks involving locational memory and informational recall. beliefs and metacognitive strategies. 820 primary education The results indicate that presence of metacognitive skills was teacher trainees' were selected from the department of a necessary but not sufficient condition for learning in primary education at seven education faculties. The hypermedia environments; the navigational structure of the Epistemological Beliefs Scale and the Metacognition Web site also was important. Metacognitive skill (as Inventory were used to collect the data. The results revealed measured by the Junior Metacognitive Awareness Inventory that the beliefs of primary education teacher trainees'