Category: Blog

Integrating Reflection into Our Everyday Practices with Authenticity: A Discussion Series on Metacognition

The word "preface" with a scrolled "p"

In “Integrating Reflection into Our Everyday Practices with Authenticity: A Discussion Series on Metacognition,” educators across the Mount Saint Mary College discuss the place of reflection within their own professional development and that of their students in their processes of metacognition.

As Associate Professor of English and Director of the Honors Program, Marie-Therese C. Sulit offers the opening and closing pieces to this series, which meditate and deliberate over the current political, historical, social, and cultural climate of this pandemic during a national election year in America.

In her introductory piece, Marie-Therese C. Sulit draws upon the practices of contemplative pedagogy in order to conceptually bridge reflection with metacognition, particularly during COVID-19.

As Assistant Director of the Office for Student Success, Megan Morrissey discusses the training of academic coaches and coaching of students in facilitating the development of new study strategies for new achievement goals.

As Director of the Writing Center, Gina Evers considers the ways in which teaching and learning are woven together through reflection in her tutor training program.

As Assistant to the President in Mission Integration, Director of the Catholic and Dominican Institute, and Associate Professor of Philosophy, Charles Zola discusses the Four Pillars of Dominican Spirituality, particularly the role of reflection, through his work with the Dominican Scholars of Hope.

In her concluding piece, Marie-Therese C. Sulit discusses disputatio, a metacognitive method of investigation that not only embodies the Dominican Intellectual Tradition but also the reflective practices of contemplative pedagogy, as a means to explore the implications for curricular and campus reform at the Mount.

This miniseries explores the dimensions of metacognition across two tiers—within our classrooms and our offices—through our own professional development in tandem with our students and our colleagues: in short, why we do what we do and how we do it on an everyday basis.


Connecting Emotional Intelligence with Metacognition

by Gina Burkart, Ed.D., Learning Specialist, Clarke University

Emotional intelligence has been receiving lots of attention in the news. In fact, recent research has shown that higher levels of emotional intelligence can lead to salary increases (Rode, Arthaud-Day, Rmaswami, & Howes, 2017). So what exactly is emotional intelligence? It is the ability to recognize, think about, and regulate how one’s thoughts and emotions are impacting one’s behaviors and habits. These characteristics link it with metacognition because it correlates with our ability to think about what we do, how we do it, and how we think about our own thinking and whether or not we even engage in metacognition.

Nuhfer (2017) also addressed this relationship when he explored how affect governs how we think and feel, and determines how we filter the world and operate—thus controlling our success and failure. Additionally, studies are showing that guiding college students in developing emotional intelligence leads to increases in retention and persistence of college students (Mendez, Aronold, Erjavec, & Lopez, 2018-2019). Likewise, research indicates holistic interventions that focus on non-cognitive factors might make the biggest difference in helping students recover academically (Friedlander, Reid, Shupak, & Cribbie, 2007).

photo of hot pink boxing gloves in the shape of human brains worn on two hands reaching toward each other, so it looks like the two brans will punch each other

Emotional intelligence and metacognition both can be developed through careful curriculum development that allows space in the classroom for both introspective and group work. This blog post shares some examples of collaborative work with our campus learning center – these efforts help students find productive cognitive and emotional strategies that foster new habits and support their success.

Strategies for Embedding Metacognition Linked with Emotional Intelligence into the Classroom

Embedding emotional intelligence and metacognition into a college classroom might seem overwhelming or be perceived as taking time away from necessary content. However, many strategies can be quickly and easily embedded into existing curriculum and increase learning and efficacy of students. Each of the processes I describe below have components to 1) bring awareness to feelings related to academic performance, 2) identify possible strategies, and 3) support emotional self-regulation in enacting strategies.

Journaling based on the Six Seconds Emotional Intelligence Model

I have found the Six Seconds Emotional Intelligence Model to be a useful tool to facilitate metacognition and emotional intelligence throughout the semester. The model guides students in knowing self, choosing self, and giving self to establish what is needed or what feelings are occurring, how the student will respond based on what is needed and how he or she is feeling, and why that is the appropriate action.

This model can be used in a variety of courses to assign an easy 5-minute journal prompt at the beginning of each class period. For example, I have students use What, How, and Why to reflect on and write about how they are feeling (aspect of emotional intelligence) and what they are learning on index cards. I collect them immediately after the 5 minutes has passed. During small group work, I quickly read through the cards and write quick suggestions/feedback upon them and then return the cards to the students. It also helps me keep my pulse on how the class is feeling (instructor emotional intelligence). For example, a student might write:

  • What Feeling: Not confident in class participation, feel anxious
  • How Respond: More time spent reading the class assignments before class (My comment to student—Great idea! SQ3R would be an efficient and effective strategy to review the chapter 30 minutes before class)
  • Why: If I am familiar with the material, I will have confidence and participate. My participation grade and learning of the material will improve.

Identifying and Appropriately Responding to Distorted Thoughts

Because emotions are based on thoughts, and thoughts can be inaccurate, I have found it very helpful to teach students about distorted thoughts and how to correct them. I spend two class periods on this in the college study strategy course that I teach. During week three (the week research shows us students decide to leave college) of the College Study Strategy course, I introduce students to different types of distorted thoughts (e.g. overgeneralization – one negative event is seen as a pattern; comparative thinking – you measure yourself by others’ ability even if that comparison may be inaccurate), ask them to share experiences, and then have them record and counter the experiences throughout the week in a response journal. Additionally, I have them identify in a chart examples of distorted thoughts in characters of stories, shows, or movies they have watched. We then discuss them in class the following week. This approach has also been integrated into the Introduction to Physical Therapy course and the Introduction to Nursing course.

I also facilitate workshops on the topic of distorted thoughts, tailoring the content to the course curriculum. Handout 1 can be a helpful resource for facilitating this with students—and can be incorporated into the Six Second model. Additionally, I assign journal reflections based on student self-identified, distorted thoughts that occur throughout the week (See Handout 2).

Summary

In thinking about how to integrate emotional regulation and metacognition strategies into curriculum, it is helpful to recall that people are intrinsically motivated when they have a deeper understanding of self, one aspect of which is the emotional self. Recent research has shown that students with high levels of intrinsic motivation are more productive, persistent, and have higher levels of emotional wellbeing (Froiland, Oros, Smith, & Hirchert, 2012).

Embedding these types of emotional intelligence and metacognition assignments need not be complex or complicated. The more frequently students engage in the process of thinking about what they are doing and feeling, and make adjustments to their practices based on that thinking, the more likely this will become an automatic practice. Actually, making emotional self-regulation quick and routine will make identification and control of emotions a productive habit for the students and professors. And, ultimately, it will increase learning, persistence and carry over into the students’ personal lives and careers.

References

Friedlander, L..J., et al. (2007) Social support, self-esteem, and stress as predictors of adjustment to university among first-year undergraduates. Journal of College Student development, 48(3), 259-274.

Froiland, J. M., Oros, E., Smith, L. & Hirchert, T. (2012). Intrinsic motivation to learn: The nexus between psychological health and academic success. Contemporary School  Psychology, 16, 91-101.

Mendez, S., Arnold, C. Erjavec, P., Lopez, L. (2018-2019). Does emotional intelligence predict persistence among students on academic probation? Journal of Student Affairs, 107-117. https://sahe.colostate.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/10/2019/09/SAHE-journal-2019.pdf#page=54

Rode, J. C., Arthaud-Day, M. L., Ramawami, A., Howes, S. (2017). A time-lagged study of emotional intelligence and salary. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 101, 77-89. Retrieved from https://paperdownload.me/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/5535-time-lagged-emotional-intelligence-salary.pdf


Want to Kick Start a Conversation about Metacognition? Assign the Blind Draft

by Amy Ratto Parks, Ph.D., University of Montana

Although many of us feel held in suspense about the state of teaching and learning in the fall, there is one thing I know for sure: I will still be using the Blind Draft assignment. The Blind Draft is a homework assignment that requires students to compose a short draft into a completely blackened computer screen; without any visual cue from the writing, they quickly become aware of their thinking. This single assignment builds classroom community, grounds students in their own minds and bodies, introduces them to a new way of understanding themselves as learners, and kicks off a course-long conversation about metacognition.

Photo of a woman with a cloth blindfold around her eyes

Right now, teaching and learning are happening in a remarkably distracting set of circumstances. National and global issues lead us into internet news and social media cultures that have had wide-ranging and varied impacts on teachers and students in Western cultures. Through the visually dominant world inside our screens we are propelled forward (Brockman, 2011) away from our own minds and bodies and into carefully sculpted Instagram lives, snappy Twitter feeds and sharp info graphics. But in order for teaching and learning to happen well, our minds have to move away from the glossy surface and focus on the task at hand. We know that students who are able to monitor their attention by developing skills in attention literacy (Brockman, 2011) also demonstrate strong meta-cognitive awareness and are positioned for a productive learning experience (Tarricone, 2011).

The Blind Draft offers students an initial small step into meeting their own minds as learners. It creates a unique and memorable composing and revision experience that provides a platform for experience-based reflection and conversation about how differently individual student’s minds might respond to novel learning challenges (Yancey, 1998). Those conversations provide an opening into a discussion about how metacognitive concepts help us understand how to navigate writer’s block, writing anxiety, and other common writing barriers. Supporting a sustained conversation about how students respond to writing challenges will help athleticize their attention (Caldwell, 2018), build personal understanding, and help them develop an increased sense of agency (Negretti, 2012) over their own identities and abilities as writers.

The Assignment

One of the most beautiful things about the Blind Draft is the simplicity of its design, however, it does work best with a bit of set up at the start because students immediately question the simplicity.

The set up

Because students focus so carefully on their grades, there is an underlying sense of risk in any work assigned in a class. Therefore, it is important to frame the assignment as an experiment where the goal is to participate in the experiment so that you all will have something interesting to talk about during the next class. You will also want to think of a very (very) general writing prompt such as, write about “you and food” or “you and happiness” for students to respond to in their drafts.

The directions

In general, the work happens in three parts: 1) Students type in response to the prompt without being able to see what they’re typing for 15 minutes. 2) They revise the messy blind draft. 3) They reflect briefly on their own writing behavior You might offer them the following directions:

Step 1: Compose (Note: The blind drafting process works best when typing on a computer)

  1. Set a timer for 15 minutes.
  2. Open and save a blank document. (Note: Saving the document before typing is important because sometimes typing blindly leads one to delete the entire document!)
  3. Make a mental note of the writing prompt.
  4. Turn off or cover the screen. 
  5. Type without stopping for 15 minutes. 
  6. Print or save document as “blind draft.” (Note: This will be your preference depending on whether you are collecting hard copy or electronic versions. The important thing is simply that they specify which draft was the blind draft and which was the revision. It seems as though that would be obvious, but sometimes it isn’t.)

Step 2: Revise

  1. Revise the draft into 1-2 page essay. (You can keep everything from the first draft or nothing at all and rearrange as you please.)
  2. Print or save document as “revised blind draft.”

Step 3: Reflect

  1. List the kinds of changes you made between drafts.
  2. Did you like this exercise? Hate it? Something in between? 
  3. Where did you rest your eyes without a screen to study?  
  4. Print or save document as “reflection.”

These instructions often cause laughter or anxiety — or both. Students need reassurance that yes, that first draft will be a terrific and spectacular mess, and that yes, that is the goal; they also appreciate a reminder that the second draft allows them to share a stronger more controlled version of their writing.

Student Responses

It turns out that students either love or hate this assignment; there is very little in between. I begin the discussion of the drafts by asking people to raise their hands if they hated this assignment, then if they loved it, and this initial question is often enough to begin a robust conversation about how differently they engaged with the writing. Why would some people feel constrained by this and other feel liberated? Right from the start, they are plenty baffled by anyone who had an experience that differed from their own.

Specifically, students say similar things about the assignment. Mostly, they notice everything their minds were doing besides writing. The often found themselves asking:

  • How long is 15 minutes? They report that they fixate on wondering how much time has passed and whether or not they are writing quickly. (In other words, am I doing a good job?)
  • How much am I writing? They report fixating on how much they have written, even when there is no assigned length requirement. (In other words, am I doing a good job?) They also realize that while they were distracted by the blind writing, they didn’t notice how much they were writing. Some students report writing less than they imagined, but most write more (and often report that they had no idea how often they’re thinking about page length rather than the topic of the writing).
  • Why did I try to fix the errors? In every class, students will laughingly recount trying to backspace and delete an error – even when they are not sure they made an error. They describe trying to count backward the correct number of letters to fix a spelling mistake even when they realize that it is unlikely that they will have actually corrected the error. (In other words, am I doing a good job?)

Take-away Messages

In a mini-lecture afterward, I explain that:

  • The human cognitive processes are messy and unpredictable (Flavell, 1976). Therefore, we need to expect a certain amount of confusion or chaos in the learning process. Reinforcing this early in a class helps students normalize challenge and difficulty.
  • The cognitive processes that inform writing of any kind are also are messy and unpredictable (Flower & Hayes, 1981). Therefore, we also need to leave room for some confusion and chaos in the writing process! This idea normalizes the fact that writing is always challenging and pushes back against the myth that writing is just easy for some people.
  • The process of writing is not linear – it’s recursive. We don’t just write; we write, re-read, write, re-read (Olive, 2014). Therefore, though we all want to sit down and “hammer out” an essay, strong writing doesn’t happen that way.
  • Our eyes don’t stay on the words we’re typing; they are skipping back and ahead (de Smet, M. J. R., Leijten, M., & Van Waes, L. (2018). Therefore, if you’re on a first draft and haven’t written much, your eyes keep looking back and ahead at nothing which can induce panic and mental paralysis.
  • It is important to sometimes “write badly” (Ballenger, 2018). Leaving space for chaos in drafting allows us to become aware of our own mental processes, thoughts and ideas – and can make space for new connections and ideas to come forward.

You might wonder what I do after collecting this assignment since it produces a lot of material at once. Since the goal was the experience of the work, I do not line edit their writing or respond to each draft; instead, I thank them for investing in the experiment and I reinforce how beautifully messy their blind drafts were. The students really do take quite a risk by just turning in something as messy as a blind draft and it is nice to remind them that by turning it in that have confronted the chaos of their own writing minds, and therefore, have already done a good job.

Perhaps more importantly, the Blind Draft assignment helps them develop a sustained awareness of how their minds are working while writing and for many students that extends into their ability to monitor their thinking and behavior while completing other academic tasks (i.e. metacognition).

Works Cited

Ballenger, B. P. (2018). The curious writer. Boston: Pearson.

(2011) Is the internet changing the way we think? The net’s impact on our minds and future. Brockman,   John (Ed.) New York, NY. Harper Perennial.

Caldwell, C. (2018). Bodyfulness. Boulder, CO: Shambhala.

de Smet, M. J. R., Leijten, M., & Van Waes, L. (2018). Exploring the Process of Reading During Writing Using Eye Tracking and Keystroke Logging. Written Communication, 35(4), 411–447. https://doi.org/10.1177/0741088318788070

Olive, T. (2014). Toward a parallel and cascading model of the writing system: A review of research on writing processes coordination. Journal of Writing Research, 6(2), 173-194. doi:10.17239/jowr-2014.06.02.4

Negretti, R. (2012). Metacognition in student academic writing: A longitudinal study of  Metacognitive awareness and its relation to task perception, self-regulation, and evaluation of performance. Written Communication, 29(2), 142–179.

Tarricone, P. (2011). The taxonomy of metacognition. New York: Psychology Press.

Yancey, K.B. (1998). Reflection in the writing classroom. Logan: Utah State  University Press.


Metacognition and the Development of Self-Identity

by Roman Taraban, Ph.D. Texas Tech University

The question “What do you want to be when you grow up” should be familiar to all of us, as well as the typical responses: a firefighter, a pilot, a doctor, a nurse, a teacher, an astronaut. We playfully pose this question to children, not fully realizing we are inquiring about their ultimate self-identity – the deep and personal awareness of who they are. Children may not have a self-identity beyond “child,” “son” “daughter,” “student,” “soccer goalie,” “Girl Scout.” But over time, that will change.

image of woman outline with words related to self-identity. Image from https://www.nextcallings.com/solutions/2017/8/24/my-self-is-changing-myselfhow-making-life-or-business-transitions-can-produce-new-parts-of-the-self

So when does self-identity emerge, and how does metacognition help it along its developmental path? In this post, I propose that the emergence of self-identity is a lifelong process that begins in early childhood and has strong underpinnings in memory research. Flavell (1987) brings in the metacognitive factor, in part, through his discussion of metacognitive experiences. We all have self-identity, however, we know little about how to monitor and regulate it metacognitively in order to develop and maintain a healthy and adaptive sense of self.

Who Am I? Where Is My Life Going?

Self-identity emerges out of a specific kind of memory, known as episodic memory. Episodic memory enables a person to recall personally experienced events and to re-live those experiences in the here-and-now (Tulving, 2002). Fivush (2011) refers to the organized coherent sense of self that emerges from episodic experiences as autobiographical memory. Autobiographical memory allows a person to construct an evolving life story that creates a coherent sense of self-identity, of who we are. Thinking about these memory processes would seem to be a perfect place for metacognition to play a major role.

Autobiographical memory and, with it, narrative identity, develop starting in early childhood. A child’s identity is influenced, in part, by the opportunities for relating personal events through conversations with caregivers and friends. Mothers who are elaborative with their children before their preschool years have children who produce more coherent self-narratives by the end of their preschool years (Fivush, 2011). One way, for example, is by asking open-ended questions with some guiding information – e.g., What did we do at the park today? Parents, teachers, and friends continue to shape identity long into adulthood with the questions they ask and the personal experiences that they share. These interactions prompt reflections on one’s own experiences and resonate to the questions Who am I? Where is my life going?

Metacognitive Experiences

John H. Flavell, an American developmental psychologist, labeled higher-level cognition as metacognition and is regarded as a founding scholar in metacognitive research. A major component in Flavell’s theory is a metacognitive experience, which is “any kind of [a]ffective or cognitive conscious experience that is pertinent to the conduct of intellectual life” (Flavell, 1987, p. 24). Flavell suggests that there is a developmental element in individuals’ adaptive responsiveness to these experiences: “As one grows older one learns how to interpret and respond appropriately to these experiences” (p. 24). When do we have metacognitive experiences? According to Flavell, “when the cognitive situation is something between completely novel and completely familiar…where it is important to make correct inferences, judgments, and decisions” (p. 24).

The question of how and when self-identity evolves in college students was explored in an edited book on undergraduate research experiences (Taraban & Blanton, 2008). Students’ responses have the character of metacognitive experiences – i.e., conscious experiences in which inferences, judgments, and decisions are critical. It is metacognitive experiences like these that help us to theoretically bridge the development of self-identity from the nurturing discourses of mothers with young children, to the choice of fields of study in high school and college, and ultimately to a relatively stable identity as an adult professional:

Wyatt McMahon: Thus, as I grew up, when people asked me what I wanted to be, I realized that I wanted to help improve society, but I was not sure how.

Robin Henne: Before the tour [of Texas Tech Biology], I had no idea that research was even possible for biology majors; following the tour, I was convinced that research was what I wanted to do for my career.

Susan Harrell Yee: When I first started as a freshman at Texas Tech University, I chose environmental engineering as my major. It seemed a wise decision – I liked math and I liked ecology, and environmental engineering seemed to be a logical combination of the two. But after a single day, I knew the engineering route was not for me.

Engineering Identity

An area of great interest in current scholarly research involves engineering identity. Engineering educators are interested in how engineering students view themselves early on in their training (Loshbaugh & Claar, 2007), as well as what it means more generally to think of oneself as an engineer (Godwin, 2016; Morelock, 2017). The poignancy of this issue struck me when leading a discussion with graduate engineering students. The topic of discussion was, in part, personal narrative, which is the autobiographical narrative we create about ourselves and which is the basis of self-identity. It was evident from their comments that embracing a self-identity was not instantaneous upon choosing professional training. The following conveyed a sense of the struggle:

For the majority of my life, I have always been a “student” studying to become insert profession.

I sometimes to this day don’t consider myself as an engineer. I feel like throughout my time [here], I’ve always just been an “engineering student”.

I have struggled to see myself as an engineer but the older I get and the more secure I become in my field the easier it is to own and step into that narrative.

The Role of Metacognition

We are surrounded by instances of introspection regarding self-identity. Neal Diamond, the 20th century pop singer, presented his reflections as an existential crisis: I am…I said. Walt Whitman, the 19th century poet, gave a transcendental response in 52 parts in “Song of Myself,” and Reverend William Holmes Borders, Sr., a civil-rights activist, in the 1950s proclaimed “I Am Somebody” in a poem of self identity. Although we all have a sense of self-identity, very little explicit attention has been given in research to ways of metacognitively monitoring and guiding the development of a healthy and adaptive sense of self. This is one area where extending metacognitive theory beyond its current bounds could have a significant role in helping us to know who we are and to reach our true potential.

References

Fivush, R. (2011). The development of autobiographical memory. Annual Review of Psychology, 62, 559-582.

Flavell, J. H. (1987). Speculations about the nature and development of metacognition. In F. E. Weinert, & R. Kluwe (Eds.), Metacognition, motivation, and understanding (pp. 21-29). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Godwin, A. (2016). The development of a measure of engineering identity. In Proceedings, ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, New Orleans, LA.

Loshbaugh, H., & Claar, B. (2007). Geeks are chic: Cultural identity and engineering students’ pathways to the profession. In Proceedings ASEE Annual Conference & Exposition, Honolulu, HI.

Morelock, J. R. (2017). A systematic literature review of engineering identity: Definitions, factors, and interventions affecting development, and means of measurement. European Journal of Engineering Education, 42(6), 1240-1262.

Taraban, R., & Blanton, R. L. (Eds.). (2008). Creating effective undergraduate research programs in science: The transformation from student to scientist. New York: Teachers College Press.

Tulving, E. (2002). Episodic memory: From mind to brain. Annual Review of Psychology, 53, 1-25.


The Power of Social Discourse While Teaching Online during a Pandemic: Using an Online Discussion Board to Engage Metacognition

by Gina Burkart, Ed.D., Learning Specialist, Clarke University

The recent shift to online learning has resulted in class discussions taking place on an online discussion board; while some may not realize it, the discussion board can be a strategic resource for facilitating metacognition in the classroom (Burkart, 2010). This practice is supported by a range of pedagogical research. Eflkides (2008) reminded us of the interrelatedness of self and social within the workings of metacognition. And, research shows that metacognition grows based on the continuous flow of information through cognitive systems of self and other. This growth is further enriched through the use of language for reflection upon and communication of these processes with others (Efklides, 2008; Burkart, 2010; Ruffman, Slade, & Crow, 2002). Additionally, assigned discussion on the online discussion board fulfills the criteria that VanZile-Tamsen and Livingston (1999) found to increase positive motivation in students: self-efficacy, sense of control, relevance, emphasis on learning.

silhouette image of 4 people with one talking and the others listening

Creating Metacognitive Prompts

Key to the success of this approach is the creation of effective discussion prompts. Fostering metacognitive awareness and self-regulation begins with a reflection of self within the context of the course curriculum and then calls for a reflection of self through the lens of others by prompting for a response to a classmate’s discussion post (Burkart, 2010). In a literature course this might look something like:

“Which character of the story did you relate with most? Why? Also, respond to one of your classmates using text from the story for support.”

In responding to another student’s post, students see themselves through the lens of other. Crossley (2000) reminded us in her explorations of narrative analysis that reflection of self is also social. How we see ourselves “relies on the feedback and evaluations we receive from others” (p. 12). Crossley (2000), like Bogdan and Biklen (2003), used George Herbert Mead’s (1962/1934) research on self. She referred to Mead’s (1962/1934) metaphor of “the looking glass self” (p. 12) to illustrate our tendency to see ourselves through the eyes of others. To further this metaphor, one might imagine the online discussion board as “a looking glass self.” This provides instructors and students with a useful tool for not only examining how students perceive their selves and their learning, but also for how students interact with others and influence each other as they engage in the reflexive behavior of learning (Burkart, 2010).

Looking at students’ responses to each other allows students to use their classmates’ experiences to frame their own experiences. For example, consider the following student’s response to a classmate:

I’ve struggled with my anxiety as well and test taking has always been my weakness. Maybe if you try to relax and take deep breathes in and out before a test it can help with your test anxiety. This has helped me in the past, by doing this I realized that I was more calm than usual especially when I try to get my mind off things.

By sharing awareness of their own anxiety and struggles, the student is reflecting upon herself in relation to the other student’s experience. The student then reflects upon strategies that she has tried and offers the other student guidance. This online sharing allows the student to find value in strategies that she has already tried and also reinforces to both students (and the entire class) that they are not alone in their struggles with anxiety.

In this reflexive and reflective behavior, students are metacognitively making choices about their behaviors and their classmates’ behaviors without realizing they are engaging in metacognition. This shows that curriculum can seamlessly embed metacognition into learning, and the online discussion board is a useful tool for doing so.

Student Discussion as a Tool for Monitoring Metacognitive Processing

As a professor, the online discussion is also a tool for monitoring students’ metacognitive processing. It allows teachers to adjust teaching based on the needs of the class, i.e. engage in metacognitive instruction. For example, after seeing several posts and responses regarding anxiety, I often choose to focus on anxiety and resources for dealing with anxiety and test anxiety in the next class period. In this regard, the discussion board also becomes an important tool in meta-motivational monitoring (Miele & Scholer, 2018). It allows the professor to oversee the accuracy of the students’ “self, task and strategy knowledge” (p. 3) and intervene or reinforce through responses to the students on the discussion board or in shaping and/or reshaping of curriculum in the classroom.

For example, in an introductory literature course, the discussion board was used to help students reflect on self and how self unfolded in their narratives while they used literary techniques and strategies to shape their narratives and connect with an audience. They also were to reflect specifically on the writing and revision process. After students wrote their creative nonfiction narrative, they were asked to respond to the following question in 150 words and then to a classmate’s post in 50 words:

“What new self-epiphanies emerged for you while writing and revising your narrative?”

The student responses to the prompt revealed that the creative nonfiction narrative assignment was a powerful tool for metacognition in that it made them think about their writing choices more intentionally. In the revision and editing processes, the students had to rethink self and rethink the shape of their narrative and how they told it based on feedback they received from their audience. This online activity guided students in a powerful metacognitive reflection while they commented on how their story connected or did not connect with an audience, revisions they would make in the use of literary devices to better connect with their audience, and revisions they needed to make in writing technique.

With each reading of their narrative and reflection of comments from classmates in regards to their narratives, the students reflected on self and perception of self. Additionally, students reflected on self while they read each other’ posts and comments. As mentioned previously, this reflexive, mirror effect also results in a metacognitive reflection of self. When students read about how other students are changing and growing, they are prompted to reflect on and make similar changes of self. Thus, self, revision of the narrative, revision of technique, revision of the narrative, and revision of writing all became intertwined on the discussion board and prompted metacognitive growth.

References

Bogdan, R. C., & Biklen, S. K. (2003). Qualitative research for education: An introduction to theories and methods (4th ed). Boston: Pearson Education Group, Inc.

Burkart, G. (2010, Dec). First-Year College Student Beliefs about Writing Embedded in Online Discourse: An Analysis and Its Implications to Literacy Learning. (Unpublished doctoral  dissertation). University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, IA.

Burkart, G. (2010, May). An analysis of online discourse and its application to literacy learning, The Journal of Literacy and Learning. Retrieved from http://www.literacyandtechnology.org/uploads/1/3/6/8/136889/jlt_v11_1.pdf#page=64

Crossley, M. (2000). Introducing narrative psychology: Self, trauma, and the construction of meaning. Philadelphia, PA: Open University Press.

Efklides, A. (2008). Metacognition: Defining its facets and levels of functioning in relation to self-regulation and co-regulation. European Psychologist, 13 (4), 277-287. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232452693_Metacognition_Defining_Its_Facets_ad_Levels_of_Functioning_in_Relation_to_Self-Regulation_and_Co-regulation

Mead, G. H. (1934). Mind, self, and society: From the standpoint of a social behaviorist.

Miele, D. B. & Scholer, A. A. (2018). The role of metamotivational monitoring in motivation regulation, Educational Psychologist, 53(1), 1-21.

Ruffman, T., Slade, L., & Crowe, E. (2002). The relation between children’s and mothers’ mental state language and theory-of-mind understanding. Child Development, 73, 734-751.

VanZile-Tamsen, C. & Livingston, Jennifer. J. A. (1999). The differential impact of motivation on the self-regulated strategy use of high- and low-achieving college student. Journal of College Student Develompment, (40)1, 54-60. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232503812_The_differential_impact_of_motivation_on_the_self-regulated_strategy_use_of_high-_and_low-achieving_college_students


What Pandemics Can Teach Us about Critical Thinking and Metacognition

by Stephen L. Chew, Ph.D. Samford University (slchew@samford.edu)

Critical thinking leads to fewer errors and better outcomes, fueling personal and societal success (Halpern, 1998; Willingham, 2019). The current view is that critical thinking is discipline specific and arises out of subject expertise. For example, a chess expert can think critically about chess, but that analytical skill does not transfer to non-chess situations. The evidence for general critical thinking skills, and our ability to teach them to students, is weak (Willingham, 2019). But these are strange times that challenge that consensus.

The world is currently dealing with COVID-19, a pandemic unprecedented in our lifetime in scope, virulence, and level of contagion. No comprehensive expertise exists about the most effective policies to combat the pandemic. Virologists understand the virus, but not the epidemiology. Epidemiologists understand models of infection, but not public policy. Politicians understand public policy, but not viruses. We are still discovering the properties of COVID-19, fine tuning pandemic models, and trying out new policies.  As a result, different countries have responded to the pandemic in different ways. Unfounded beliefs and misinformation have proliferated to fill the void of knowledge, which range from useless to counterproductive and even harmful.

graph with virus molecule and question marks

The Relationship between Metacognition and Critical Thinking

If critical thinking can only occur with sufficient expertise, then virtually no one should be able to think critically about the pandemic, yet I believe that critical thinking can play a vital role. In this essay, I argue that metacognition is a crucial element of critical thinking and, because of this, critical thinking is both a general skill and teachable. While critical thinking is most often seen (and studied) in situations where  prior knowledge matters, it is in unprecedented situations like this pandemic where more general critical thinking skills emerge and can make a crucial difference in terms of decision making and problems solving.  

I’m building on the work of Halpern (1998) who argued that critical thinking is a teachable, general, metacognitive skill. She states, “When people think critically, they are evaluating the outcomes of their thought processes – how good a decision is or how well a problem is solved” (Halpern, 1998, p. 451). Reflection on one’s own thought processes is the very definition of metacognition. Based on Halpern’s work, we can break critical thinking down into five core components:

  1. Predisposition toward Engaging in Thoughtful Analysis
  2. Awareness of One’s Own Knowledge, Thought Processes and Biases
  3. Evaluation of the Quality and Completeness of Evidence
  4. Evaluation of the Quality of the Reasoning, Decision Making, or Problem Solving 
  5. An Ability to Inhibit Poor and Premature Decision Making

Predisposition toward Engaging in Thoughtful Analysis

Critical thinking involves a personal disposition toward engaging in thoughtful analysis. Strong critical thinkers display this tendency in situations where many people do not see the need, and they engage in more detailed, thorough analysis than many people feel necessary (Willingham, 2019). The variation in the predisposition to think analytically has been on display during the pandemic. Some people simply accept what they hear or read without verifying its validity. In social media, they might pass along information they find interesting or remarkable without distinguishing between valid information, conspiracy, opinion, and propaganda.

The penchant for complex thinking as a habit can be developed and trained. Our educational system should reinforce the value of detailed analysis in preventing costly errors and should give students extensive practice in carrying it out within whatever field the student is studying.

Awareness of One’s Own Knowledge, Thought Processes and Biases

Critical thinking requires insight into the accuracy of what one knows and the extent and importance of what one doesn’t know. It also involves insight into how one’s biases might influence judgment and decision making (West et al., 2008). Metacognition plays a major role in accurate self-awareness.

Self-awareness is prone to serious error and bias (Bjork et al., 2013; Metcalfe, 1998). Greater confidence is not the same as greater knowledge. Metacognitive awareness can be poor and misleading (McIntosh et al., 2019). The good news, though, is that poor self-awareness can be overcome through proper experience and feedback (Metcalfe, 1998).

In this pandemic, key critical thinking involves understanding the implications of what we know and continue to discover about COVID-19. One example is the exponential growth rate of COVID-19  infection. Effective responding to the exponential growth involves taking aggressive preventative measures before there is any symptomatic evidence of spread, which, intuitively, seems like an overreaction. Confirmation bias made it easy to accept what people wanted to be true as fact and reject what they did not want to be true as unlikely. Thus, people often ignored warnings about distancing and avoiding large gatherings until the pandemic was well underway.

Recognizing one’s own biases and how to avoid them is a general skill that can be developed through education. Students can be taught to recognize the many biases that can undermine rational, effective thinking (Kahneman, 2011). For example, students can learn to seek out disconfirming evidence to counter confirmation bias (Anglin, 2019). To guard against overconfidence, students can learn to assess their understanding against an objective standard (Chew, 2016).

Evaluation of the Quality and Completeness of Evidence

Critical thinkers understand the importance of evaluating the quality and completeness of their evidence, which involves a metacognitive appraisal. Do I have data of sufficient quality from sufficiently representative samples in order to make valid decisions? What data am I missing that I need? The quality of evidence continues to be of immense concern in the U.S. because of the lack of rapid testing for COVID-19. Critical thinkers understand that data vary in reliability, validity and measurement error. Early in the pandemic, some people believed that COVID-19 was milder than the flu. These people accepted early estimates at face value, without understanding the limitations of the data. What counts for valid data is one aspect of critical thinking that is more discipline specific. Critical thinkers may not be able to evaluate the quality of evidence outside their area of expertise, but they can at least understand that data can vary in quality and it matters greatly for making decisions.

Non-critical thinkers consider data in a biased manner. They may search only for information that supports their beliefs and ignore or discount contradictory data (Schulz-Hardt et al., 2000). Critical thinkers consider all the available data and are aware if there are data they need but do not have. During the pandemic, there were leaders who dismissed the severity of COVID-19 and waited too long to order a quarantine, and there were leaders who wanted to remove the quarantine restrictions despite the data.  

Evaluation of the Quality of the Reasoning, Decision Making, or Problem Solving

Critical thinking includes evaluating how well the evidence is used to create a solution or make a decision (e.g. Schwartz et al. 2005). There are general metacognitive questions that people can use to evaluate the quality of any argument. Have all perspectives been considered?  Have all alternative explanations been explored? How might a course of action go wrong? Like judgments of evidence, judgments of the strength of an argument is fraught with biases (e.g. Gilovich, 2008; Kraft et al., 2015; Lewandowsky et al., 2012). People more readily accept arguments that agree with their views and are more skeptical of arguments they disagree with, instead of considering the strength of the argument. The pandemic has already spawned dubious studies with selection bias, lack of a control group, or lack careful control, but the “findings” of these studies are embraced by people who want them to be true. Furthermore, people persist in beliefs in the face of clear contradictory evidence (Guenther & Alicke, 2008).

Students should learn about the pitfalls of bias and motivated cognition regardless of their major. Critical thinking involves intellectual humility, an openness to alternative views and a willingness to change beliefs in light of sufficient evidence (Porter, & Schumann, 2018).

An Ability to Inhibit Poor and Premature Decision Making

The last component of a critical thinker is resistance to drawing premature conclusions. Critical thinkers know the limitations of their evidence and keep their reasoning and decision making within its bounds (Noone et al., 2016). They resist tempting but premature conclusions. The inhibitory aspect of critical thinking is probably the least well understood of all the components and deserves more research attention.

Metacognition Supports Critical Thinking

Metacognition, the ability to reflect on one’s own knowledge, plays a crucial role in critical thinking. We see it in the awareness of one’s own knowledge (Component 2), awareness of the quality of evidence and possible biases (Component 3) and the evaluation of the strength of an argument (Component 4). If we wish to teach critical thinking, we need to emphasize these metacognitive skills, both as part of a student’s training in a major and as part of general education. The other two components of critical thinking, the predisposition to engage in critical thinking and the inhibition of premature conclusions, are habits that can be trained.

Critical thinking is hard to do. It takes conscious mental effort and requires overcoming powerful human biases. No one is immune to bad decisions. I assert that critical thinking is a general, teachable skill, especially in situations where decisions have to be made in unprecedented conditions. The pandemic shows that critical decisions often have to be made before sufficient evidence is available. Critical thinking leads to better outcomes by making the best use of available evidence and minimizing error and vulnerability to bias. In these situations, critical thinking is a vital skill, and metacognition plays a major role.

References

Anglin, S. M. (2019). Do beliefs yield to evidence? Examining belief perseverance vs Change in response to congruent empirical findings. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 82, 176–199. https://doi-org.ezproxy.samford.edu/10.1016/j.jesp.2019.02.004

Bjork, R.A., Dunlosky, J., & Kornell, N. (2013) Self-regulated learning: Beliefs, techniques, and illusions. Annual Review of Psychology, 64, 417-444.  https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/4efb/146e5970ac3a23b7c45ffe6c448e74111589.pdf

Chew, S. L. (2016, February). The Importance of Teaching Effective Self-Assessment. Improve with Metacognition Blog. Retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/the-importance-of-teaching-effective-self-assessment/

Gilovich T. (2008). How We Know What Isn’t So: Fallibility of Human Reason in Everyday Life (Reprint edition). Free Press.

Guenther, C. L., & Alicke, M. D. (2008). Self-enhancement and belief perseverance. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44(3), 706-712. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2007.04.010

Halpern, D. F. (1998). Teaching critical thinking for transfer across domains: Disposition, skills, structure training, and metacognitive monitoring. American Psychologist, 53(4), 449-455.

Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Kraft, P. W., Lodge, M., & Taber, C. S. (2015). Why people ‘don’t trust the evidence’: Motivated reasoning and scientific beliefs. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 658(1), 121–133. https://doi-org/10.1177/0002716214554758

Lewandowsky, S., Ecker, U. K. H., Seifert, C. M., Schwarz, N., & Cook, J. (2012). Misinformation and Its Correction: Continued Influence and Successful Debiasing. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 13(3), 106–131. https://doi-org.ezproxy.samford.edu/10.1177/1529100612451018

Metcalfe, J. (1998). Cognitive optimism: Self-deception or memory-based processing heuristics? Personality and Social Psychology Review, 2(2), 100–110. https://doi-org.ezproxy.samford.edu/10.1207/s15327957pspr0202_3

McIntosh, R. D., Fowler, E. A., Lyu, T., & Della Sala, S. (2019). Wise up: Clarifying the role of metacognition in the Dunning-Kruger effect. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 148(11), 1882–1897. https://doi.org/10.1037/xge0000579

Noone, C., Bunting, B., & Hogan, M. J. (2016). Does mindfulness enhance critical thinking? Evidence for the mediating effects of executive functioning in the relationship between mindfulness and critical thinking. Frontiers in Psychology, 6. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.02043

Porter, T., & Schumann K., (2018) Intellectual humility and openness to the opposing view, Self and Identity, 17(2), 139-162, DOI: 10.1080/15298868.2017.1361861

Schulz-Hardt, S., Frey, D., Lüthgens, C., & Moscovici, S. (2000). Biased information search in group decision making. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78(4), 655–669. https://doi-org /10.1037/0022-3514.78.4.655

Schwartz, D., Bransford, J., & Sears, D. (2005). Efficiency and innovation in transfer. In J. Mestre (Ed.), Transfer of learning from a modern multidisciplinary perspective (pp. 1-51). Greenwich, CT: Information Age Publishing.

West, R. F., Toplak, M. E., & Stanovich, K. E. (2008). Heuristics and biases as measures of critical thinking: Associations with cognitive ability and thinking dispositions. Journal of Educational Psychology, 100(4), 930–941. https://doi-org/10.1037/a0012842

Willingham, D. T. (2019).  How to Teach Critical Thinking. Education Future Frontiers, New South Wales Department of Education.


Critically Thinking about our Not-So-Critical Thinking in the Social World

By Randi Shedlosky-Shoemaker and Carla G. Strassle, York College of Pennsylvania

When people fail to engage in critical thinking while navigating their social world, they inevitably create hurdles that disrupt their cultural awareness and competence. Unfortunately, people generally struggle to see the hurdles that they construct (i.e., bias blind spot; Pronin, Lin, & Ross, 2002). We propose metacognition can be used to help people understand the process by which they think about and interact with others.

a photo montage of face images from a large variety of people

The first step is to reflect on existing beliefs about social groups, which requires people to examine the common errors in critical thinking that they may be engaging in. By analyzing those errors, people can begin to take down the invisible hurdles on the path to cultural awareness and competency. Using metacognition principles collected by Levy (2010), in this post we discuss how common critical thinking failures affect how people define and evaluate social groups, as well as preserve the resulting assumptions. More importantly, we provide suggestions on avoiding those failures.

Defining Social Groups

Social categories, by their very nature, are social constructs. That means that people should not think of social categories in terms of accuracy, but rather utility (Levy, 2010, pp. 11-12). For example, knowing a friend’s sexual orientation might help one consider what romantic partners their friend might be interested in. When people forget that dividing the world into social groups is not about accurately representing others but rather a mechanism to facilitate social processes, they engage in an error known as reification. In relation to social groups, this error can also involve using tangible, biological factors (e.g., genetics) as the root cause of social constructs (e.g., race, gender). To avoid this reification error, people should view biological and psychological variables as two separate, but complementary levels of description (Levy, 2010, pp. 15-19), and remember that social categories are only important if they are useful.

Beyond an inappropriate reliance on biological differences to justify the borders between social groups, people often oversimplify those groups. Social categories are person-related variables, which are best represented on a continuum; reducing those variables to discrete, mutually exclusive groups, creates false dichotomies (Levy, 2010, pp. 26-28). False dichotomies, such as male or female, make it easier to overlook both commonalities shared by individuals across different groups as well as differences that exist between members within the same group.

Overly simplistic dichotomies also support the assumption that two groups represent the other’s polar opposite (e.g., male is the polar opposite of female, Black is the polar opposite of White). Such an assumption means ignoring that individuals can be a member of two supposedly opposite groups (e.g., identify as multiple races/ethnicities) or neither group (e.g., identify as agender).

Here, metacognition promotes reflection on the criteria used for defining group memberships. In that reflection, people should consider whether the borders that they apply to groups are too constraining, leading them to misrepresent individuals with whom they interact. Additionally, people should consider ways in which seemingly different groups can have shared features, while also still maintaining some degree of uniqueness (i.e., similarity-uniqueness paradox, Levy, 2010, pp. 39-41). By appreciating the nature and limitations of the categorization process, people can reflect upon whether applications of group memberships are meaningful or not.

Evaluating Social Groups

Critical thinking failures that occur when defining social categories are compounded when people move from describing social groups into evaluating those social groups (i.e., evaluative bias of language, Levy, 2010, pp. 4-7). In labeling social others, people often speak to what they have learned to see as different. As more dominant groups retain the power to set the standards, people may learn to use the dominant groups as the default (i.e., cultural imperialism; Young, 1990). For example, when people describe others as “that older woman”… “that kid”… “that blind person”… and so on – their chosen label conveys what they see as divergent from the status quo. By becoming more aware of the language they use, people simultaneously become more aware of how they think about social others based on social grouping. In monitoring and reflecting on language, metacognition affords us a valuable opportunity to adapt thinking through language.

Changing language can be challenging, however, particularly when people find themselves in environments that lack diversity. Frequently, people find themselves surrounded by others who look, think, and act like them. When surrounded by others who largely represent one’s self, unreflective attempts to make sense of the world may naturally echo their point of view. This is problematic for two reasons: first, people tend to rely more on readily available information in decision-making and judgments (i.e., availability heuristic, Tversky & Kahneman, 1974).

Further, with one’s own views reflected back at them, people easily overestimate how common their beliefs and behaviors are (i.e., false consensus effect, Ross, Greene, & House, 1977). That inaccurate assessment of “common” can lead people to conclude that such beliefs and behaviors are also “good”. Conversely, what is seen as different or uncommon, relative to the self, becomes “bad” (i.e., naturalistic fallacy, Levy, 2010, pp. 50-51).

By pausing to assess the variability of perspectives people have access to, metacognition allows people to consider what perspectives they are missing. In that way, people can more intentionally seek out ideas and experiences that may be different from their own.

Preserving Assumptions

Though not easy, breaking away from one’s point of view and seeking out diverse perspectives can also address another hurdle that people create for themselves: specifically, the tendency to preserve one’s existing assumptions (i.e., belief perseverance phenomenon; e.g., Ross & Anderson, 1982). Change takes work, and not surprisingly, people often choose the path of least resistance – that is, to make new information fit into the system we already have (i.e., assimilation bias, Levy, 2010, pp. 154-156).

Further, people tend to seek out information that supports existing beliefs while disregarding or discounting disconfirming information (i.e., confirmation bias, Levy, 2010, pp. 164-165). Given the habit of sticking to what fits with existing beliefs, people develop an illusion of consensus. Existing beliefs are reinforced when people fail to realize that such beliefs inadvertently influence behaviors, which in turn shape interaction, thereby creating situations that further support, rather than challenge, existing belief systems (i.e., self-fulfilling prophecy, e.g., Wilkins, 1976).

This tendency then, to protect what one already “knows” speaks to the necessity of metacognition to challenge one’s existing belief system. When people analyze and question their existing beliefs they can begin to recognize where revision of those existing beliefs is needed and choose to acquire new perspectives to do so.

Summary

So many of the critical thinking failures above occur without much effortful or conscious awareness on our part. Engaging in metacognition, and non-defensively addressing the unintentional errors one makes, allows people to break down common hurdles that disrupt cultural awareness and competency. It’s when people critically reflect upon their thought processes, identifying the potential errors that may have shaped their existing perspectives, that they can begin to change how they think and feel about social others. In terms of developing a heightened sense of cultural awareness and competency, metacognition then helps us all realize that the world is a much more complex though interesting place.

References

Levy, D.A. (2010). Tools of critical thinking: Metathoughts for psychology. Waveland Press.

Pronin, E., Lin, D. Y., & Ross, L. (2002). The bias blind spot: Perceptions of bias in self versus others. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28, 369-381. https://doi.org/10.1177/0146167202286008

Ross. L., & Anderson, C. (1982). Shortcomings in the attribution process: On the origins and maintenance of erroneous social assessments. In D. Kahneman, P. Siovic, & A. Tversky (Eds.), Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases. Cambridge Univ. Press.

Ross, L., Greene, D., & House, P. (1977).The “false consensus effect”: An egocentric bias in social perception and attribution processes. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 13, 279-301. https://doi.org/10.1016/0022-1031(77)90049-X

Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1974). Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases. Science, 27, 1124-1131. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.185.4157.1124

Wilkins, W. E. (1976). The concept of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Sociology of Education, 49, 175–183. https://doi.org/10.2307/2112523

Young, I. (1990). Justice and the politics of difference. Princeton University Press.


Pandemic Metacognition: Distance Learning in a Crisis

By Jennifer A. McCabe, Ph.D., Center for Psychology, Goucher College

The college “classroom” certainly looks different these days. Due to campus closures in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, we no longer travel to a common space to learn together in physical proximity. Though most of us have transitioned to online instruction, there was insufficient time to prepare for this new model – instead, we are in the midst of “emergency distance learning,” with significant implications for teacher and student metacognition.

image of person at computer under emergency red light

New Demands for Self-regulation

Now that certain overt motivators are no longer present, self-regulated learning is more critical than ever (e.g., Sperling et al., 2004; Wolters, 2003). Students are no longer required to hand in work during class, to engage in in-person class discussions about learned material, or to come face-to-face with instructors who know whether students are keeping up with the course. Instead they must figure out how to engage in the work of learning (and to know it is, indeed, still supposed to be work), away from the nearby guidance of instructors, other on-campus support sources, and peers. What are the effects of isolation on student metacognition? We can only find out as the situation evolves, and it will surely prove to be a complex picture. Though some will continue to succeed and even find new sources of motivation and revised strategies during this unusual time, others may experience a decline in metacognitive accuracy in the absence of typically available sources of explicit and implicit feedback on learning.

What metacognitive and motivational challenges face students who began the semester in a traditional in-person classroom, and now log in to a device to “go to class?” When I invited my (now online) students to report their experiences in preparing for our first web-based exam, many reported that the learning strategies themselves do not feel different as implemented at home, but that they are especially struggling with motivation and time management. Though these are common issues for college students even in the best of (face-to-face) circumstances, it seems they may be magnified by the current situation. For example, distractions look very different at home. Even if students already had figured out a system to manage distractions, and to channel their motivation to find focused time to implement effective learning strategies, this campus-based skill set may not translate to their current settings. Students need to recognize barriers to learning in this new context, and should be supported in developing (perhaps new or at least tweaked) strategies for academic success.

Regarding time management, online course deadlines may be timed differently – perhaps more flexibly or perhaps not – on different days of the week (instead of in a class meeting), late at night (or early in the morning), or over the weekend. Students must strategically allocate their time in a manner different from traditional classroom learning. This is compounded by the fact that some courses meet synchronously, some are completely asynchronous, and some are a hybrid. Managing this new schedule requires the metacognitive skill of recognizing how long different types of learning will take, applying the appropriate strategies, and – oh yes – fitting all that in with other non-academic demands that may change day to day. Planning is especially challenging – and anxiety-provoking – with so much unknown about the future.

Stretched Too Thin to Think Well

Looming over the learning, we cannot forget, is the actual threat of the virus, and the myriad ways it is impacting students’ mental and physical health. In my cognition classes, we discuss the implications of cognitive load, or the amount of our limited attentional resources (and therefore working memory capacity) being used for various tasks in a given moment; this current load determines how much is left over for tasks central to learning and performance goals (e.g., Pass et al., 2003). If working memory is consumed with concerns about one’s own health or the health of loved ones, financial concerns, caregiving needs, food availability, or even basic safety, it is no surprise that the ability to focus on coursework would be compromised. Intrusive worries or negative thoughts may be particularly troublesome right now, and again leave fewer resources available for learning new information. Instructors may want to consider evidence-based educational interventions – such as writing about worries to manage anxiety – that have been effective in clearing ‘space’ in mental load for learning tasks (Ramirez & Beilock, 2011).

Most importantly, we all need to understand (and accept) the limitations of our cognitive system, the implications of having limited attentional resources, and how to most effectively manage this shifting load. To better support students in metacognitive awareness, instructors across disciplines can incorporate information about cognitive load management and self-regulated learning strategies as part of their courses.

Teachers should also think carefully about the line between desirable difficulties – those learning conditions that are challenging, slow, and error-prone, but lead to stronger long-term retention – and undesirable difficulties – those challenges that are simply hard but do not result in better learning (e.g., Yan et al., 2017). When faced with a choice to add work or effort, consider whether it is part of the learning that relates to the core learning outcomes for the class. If it does not, given the current uniquely high-load circumstances we find ourselves in, drop it.

Further, be explicit and transparent with students about why assignments were retained or changed (ideally connecting these to those core objectives), and share with them your thought process about course-related design and assessment decisions. Most of all, communicate early and often with students about expectations and assessments to help them with motivation, scheduling, and cognitive load. Acknowledge that this is a highly atypical situation, show compassion, allow flexibility as you can, and let them know we are all learning together.

Imperative Explicitness

Metacognition in the time of COVID-19 must be even more intentionally brought from the implicit “hidden curriculum” of college to the explicit. Factors important to student metacognition, including self-regulated learning, should be named as a skill set central to academic (and life) success. Help them better understand their own learning and memory processes, and how strategies may need to evolve in changing circumstances, which for now means “emergency distance learning.” Perhaps a silver lining is that this investment in metacognitive flexibility will pay off in supporting students’ future endeavors. For teachers, this unexpected transition just might help us improve our student-centered approaches – wherever our classrooms may exist in the future.

Suggested References

Pass, F., Renkl, A., & Sweller, J. (2003). Cognitive load theory and instructional design: Recent developments. Educational Psychologist, 38(1), 1-4. https://doi.org/10.1207/S15326985EP3801_1

Ramirez, G., & Beilock, S. L. (2011). Writing about testing worries boosts exam performance in the classroom. Science, 331(6014), 211-213. https://doi.org/ 10.1126/science.1199427

Sperling, R. A., Howard, B. C., Staley, R., & DuBois, N. (2004). Metacognition and self-regulated learning constructs. Educational Research and Evaluation, 10(2), 117–139. doi:10.1076/edre.10.2.117.27905

Wolters, C. A. (2003). Regulation of motivation: Evaluating an underemphasized aspect of self-regulated learning. Educational Psychologist, 38(4), 189–205. doi:10.1207/S15326985EP3804_1

Yan, V. X., Clark, C. M., & Bjork, R. A. (2017). Memory and metamemory considerations in the instruction of human beings revisited: Implications for optimizing online learning. In J. C. Horvath, J. Lodge, & J. A. C. Hattie (Eds.), From the Laboratory to the Classroom: Translating the Learning Sciences for Teachers (pp. 61-78). Routledge.


Fractals and Teaching Philosophies (Part 2): Some Reflection on the Value of Metacognition

by Dr. Ed Nuhfer, California State Universities (retired)

Our previous blog contribution introduced the nature of fractals and explained why the products of intellectual development have fractal qualities. Our brain neurology is fractal, so fractal qualities saturate the entire process of intellectual development. Read the previous blog now, to refresh any needed awareness.

The acts of drafting and using a written philosophy are metacognitive by design. Rare use of philosophies seems symptomatic of undervaluing metacognition. When we operate from a written philosophy, each day offers a practice of metacognition through asking: “Did I practice my philosophy?” That involves considering where we might not have exercised one of the fractal generator’s six components (Figure 1) and then resolve to do so at the next opportunity. Doing so instills the habits of mind needed to do what we intended. Such metacognitive practice is very different from engaging challenges as separately packaged events, without using the “thinking about thinking” needed to understand how our practice was consistent with what we wanted to do. In teaching, we find some of our most significant difficulties appear when we find ourselves doing the opposite of what we most wanted to do. We get into those difficulties by not being aware of the decisions that brought us there.

One possible application of metacognition lies in a large-scale challenge that affects all schools – the annual evaluation of faculty for retention and promotion often reveals chronic problems. How might the standard practices faculty typically experience differ from a practice in which faculty employed written teaching philosophies as a way to address this annual challenge?

WHY Do We Do Annual Review of Faculty?

A metacognitive approach would start with a reflection of the reasons WHY schools go through the prickly annual ritual of evaluating faculty and the outcomes that they hope to attain from doing it. A recent discussion on a faculty development listserv showed that almost no institutions have satisfying answers to “WHY?” For many, an unreflective approach to annual review commonly defaulted to ranking the faculty according to their scores from student ratings forms, sometimes from just one global item on the forms. Asking “WHY?” resulted in the following personal email from an accomplished faculty member: “The main rationale seems in practice often to be simply ‘We have to determine annual merit scores to determine salary increases, and so we have to generate a merit score for teaching (and for research and for service).’”

Given such an annual review process, the faculty will focus on becoming “better teachers” by focusing on raising their student ratings scores, but is that the primary outcome that institutions want? Would we write that “to obtain high student ratings” as a reason that we teach in our teaching philosophies? If we sincerely want effective teaching and student learning, is there a better answer to “WHY?”

Employing Written Philosophies – An Alternate Approach

More specifically, consider which outcome of the following you would choose to expend efforts for yourself or your colleagues: 1) to try to achieve higher student ratings or 2) to improve their mastery of some things labeled in Figure 1 that are known to increase student learning? For example, if a faculty member chose for one year to produce better learning by expanding his knowledge of pedagogy to permit the matching of different kinds of instruction to specific types of content, could that be preferable? Suppose another faculty member discovered that particular stages of adult thinking existed. What if she aspired in the coming year to gain an understanding of this literature, and she focused in the coming year on designing some lessons that helped students to discover the level of thinking they had reached and what their next higher stage might be? Might that be preferable to trying to achieve higher ratings?

Illustration of components (thinking, teaching, learning) in the fractal generator for faculty and students (by Ed Nuhfer)

Figure 1. We repeat the graphic from Part 1, Figure 2 here. This representation of a philosophy as a fractal generator is somewhat analogous to a stem cell in that it contains all the essential components to produce whatever we need. Metacognition allows us to identify something of value to our current practice. Then for a year, we articulate a philosophy that includes a focus to develop that area.

When we begin to be metacognitive concerning WHY we should want to do annual evaluations and how we should use student input, things should emerge that differ from merely sorting faculty into categories in order to dispense rewards and penalties. Some positive outcomes might be enhancing awareness of how we could design our annual evaluations to help make our institutions more fit places in which to teach and learn, or to provide our graduates with better capacity for life-long learning. In such cases, the nature of annual review changes from an inspection of each faculty member’s popularity with her or his students at the end of their courses into a metacognitive process designed to produce valued outcomes. Management expert Edwards Deming warned particularly about trying to “inspect in” quality at the end of an event or process. Deming’s 14 principles can be condensed into just one concept: “Be metacognitive.” Remain aware of what you most wanted to do when you take any actions to do it.

Changing the Annual Review Format: Embed Metacognition

“Be metacognitive” represents a significant change in most institutional thinking. So, how might we enact this change? One approach would be to design the annual review more like a self-directed contract for practice. Faculty write the philosophies that they intend to practice. A graphic generator like Figure 1 can assist understanding what one now does lots of and too little of. They pick a specific area that they want to do more of and articulate their intent to develop some additional strength in that area. They also articulate WHY they chose this emphasis and what outcome they seek to achieve.

When faculty start their term, they share with their students the emphasis and the outcome through the written syllabus of each class. During the semester, their practice now achieves a metacognitive quality. They regularly reflect on their practice and monitor themselves on whether they are practicing as intended. Their annual review of teaching then becomes a report with parts somewhat like the following. 

  • Did they practice their stated philosophy? 
  • How did their students respond?
  • How did their practice change, and did that contribute to revisions in their philosophy?
  • What is their written contractual plan and philosophy for the coming year?

Weighing the Alternatives

Of the two models of annual evaluations shared above, over-reliance on student ratings for faculty evaluation answers the WHY question with: “We maintain universities so that students can rate the faculty and so that faculty will strive to be rewarded for higher ratings.” Such absurdities arise whenever we practice with no better answers to “WHY?”

As a final thought, consider how an end-of-the-course grade for a student is analogous to annual evaluation for a faculty member. How might teaching students to write their learning philosophies improve their design for learning?


How to Use Post-Test Analysis to Facilitate Metacognition in the College Classroom

by Gina Burkart, Ed.D., Learning Specialist, Clarke University

Pedagogy for Embedding Strategies into Classes

The transition to college is difficult. Students quickly discover that their old strategies from high school do not serve them well in college when they fail their first exam. As the Learning Specialist, I guide these students in modifying strategies and behaviors and in finding new strategies. This also involves helping them move away from a fixed mindset where they believe some students are just born smarter than others and move toward a growth mindset where they reflect on habits and strategies and how to set goals and make changes to achieve desired outcomes. Reflective metacognitive discussion and exercises that develop a growth mindset are necessary for this type of triaging with students (Dweck, 2006; Masters, 2013; Efklides, 2008; VanZile-Tamsen & Livingston, 1999; Livingston, 2003).

As the Learning Specialist at the University, I work with students who are struggling, and I also work with professors in developing better teaching strategies to reach students. When learning is breaking down, I have found that oftentimes the most efficient and effective method of helping students find better strategies is to collaborate with the professor and facilitate strategy workshops in the classroom tailored to the course curriculum. This allows me to work with several students in a short amount of time—while also supporting the professor by demonstrating teaching strategies he or she might integrate into future classes.

magnifying glass with the words Exam Analysis shown

An example of a workshop that works well when learning is breaking down in the classroom is the the post-test analysis workshop. The post-test analysis workshop (see activity details below) often works well in classes after the first exam. Since most students are stressed about their test results, the metacognitive workshop de-escalates anxiety by guiding students in strategic reflection of the exam. The reflection demonstrates how to analyze the results of the exam so that they can form new habits and behaviors in attempt to learn and perform better on the next exam. The corrected exam is an effective tool for fostering metacognition because it shows the students where errors have occurred in their cognitive processing (Efklides, 2008). The activity also increases self-awareness, imperative to metacognition, as it helps students connect past actions with future goals (Vogeley, Jurthen, Falkai, & Maier, 1999). This is an important step in helping students take control of their own learning and increasing motivation (Linvingston & VanZile Tamsen, 1999; Palmer & Goetz, 1988; Pintrich & DeGroot, 1990).

Post-Test Analysis Activity

When facilitating this activity, I begin by having the professor hand back the exams. I then take the students through a serious of prompts that engage them in metacognitive analysis of their performance on the exams. Since metacognitive experiences also require an awareness of feeling (Efklides, 2008), it works well to have students begin by recalling how they felt after the exam:

  • How did you feel?
  • How did you think you did?
  • Were your feelings and predictions accurate?

The post-test analysis then prompts the students to connect their feelings with how they prepared for the exam:

  • What strategies did you use to study?
    • Bloom’s Taxonomy—predicting and writing test questions from book and notes
    • Group study
    • Individual study
    • Concept cards
    • Study guides
    • Created concept maps of the chapters
    • Synthesized notes
    • Other methods?

Students are given 1-3 minutes to reflect in journal writing upon those questions. They are then prompted to analyze where the test questions came from (book, notes, power point, lab, supplemental essay, online materials, etc.) It may be helpful to have students work collaboratively for this.     

An Analysis of the Test—Where the Information Came From

  • For each question identify where the test question came from:
    • Book (B)
    • In-class notes (C)
    • Online materials (O)
    • Supplemental readings (S)
    • Not sure (?)

After identifying where the test information came from, students are then prompted to reflect in journal writing upon the questions they missed and how they might study differently based upon the questions they missed and where the questions came from. For example, a student may realize that he or she missed all of the questions that came from the book. That student may then make a goal to synthesizing class notes right after class with material from the book 30 minutes after class, and then use note reduction to create a concept map to study for the next test.

Another student might realize that he or she missed questions because of test-taking errors. For example, she didn’t carefully read the entire question and then chose the wrong response. To resolve this issue, she decided she would underline question words on the test and in attempt to slow down while reading test questions. She also realized that she changed several responses that she had correct. She will resist the urge to overthink her choices and change responses on the next test.

Next, students are taught about Bloom’s Taxonomy and how it is used by professors to write exams. In small groups, students then use Bloom’s Taxonomy to identify question types. This will take about 20-30 minutes—depending upon the length of the test. For example, students would identify the following test question as a comprehension-level question: Which of the following best describes positive reinforcement? Whereas, the following question would be noted as an application-level question: Amy’s parents give her a lollipop every time she successfully uses the toilet. What type of reinforcement is this?

Question Type: Identify What Level of Bloom’s Taxonomy the Test Question is Assessing

  • Knowledge-level questions
  • Comprehension
  • Application
  • Analysis
  • Synthesis
  • Evaluation

Students sometimes struggle with distinguishing the different levels of questions. So, it is helpful to also ask small groups to share their identified questions with the large group, as well as how they determined it to be that level of question. The professor also is a helpful resource in this discussion.

After discussion of the questions types, students then return to individual reflection, as they are asked to count the number of questions they missed for each level of Bloom’s Taxonomy. They are also asked to reflect upon what new strategies they will use to study based on this new awareness.

Adding It All Up

  • Count the number of questions missed in each level of Bloom’s Taxonomy.
  • Which types of questions did you miss most often?
  • Compare this with your study methods.
  • What adjustments might you make in your studying and learning of class material based on this information? Which levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy do you need to focus more on with your studying?

Finally, students are asked to use the class reflections and post-test assessment to create a new learning plan for the course. (See the learning plan in my previous post, Facilitating Metacognition in the Classroom: Teaching to the Needs of Your Students). Creating the Learning Plan could be a graded assignment that students are asked to do outside of class and then turn in. Students could also be referred to the Academic Resource Center on campus for additional support in formulating the Learning Plan. Additionally, a similar post-test assessment could be assigned outside of class for subsequent exams and be assigned a point value. This would allow for ongoing metacognitive reflection and self-regulated learning.

This type Cognitive Strategy Instruction (Scheid, 1993) embedded into the classroom offers students a chance to become more aware of their own cognitive processes, strategies for improving learning, and the practice of using cognitive and metacognitive processes in assessing their success (Livingston, 2003). Importantly, these types of reflective assignments move students away from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset (Dweck, 2006). As Masters (2013) pointed out “Assessment information of this kind provides starting points for teaching and learning.” Additionally, because post-test assessment offers students greater self-efficacy, control of their own learning, purpose, and an emphasis on the learning rather than the test score, it also positively affects motivation (VanZile-Tamsen & Livingston, 1999).

References

Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. New York: Balantine Books.

Efklides, A. (2008). Metacognition: Defining its facets and levels of functioning in relation to self-regulation and co-regulation. European Psychologist, 13 (4), 277-287. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232452693_Metacognition_Defining_Its_Facets_ad_Levels_of_Functioning_in_Relation_to_Self-Regulation_and_Co-regulation

Livingston, J. A. (2003). Metacognition: An overview. Retrieved from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED474273.pdf

Masters, G. N. (2013). Towards a growth mindset assessment. Retrieved from https://research.acer.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1017&context=ar_misc

Palmer, D. J., & Goetz, E. T. (1988). Selection and use of study strategies: The role of studier’s beliefs about self and strategies. In C. E. Weinstein, E. T. Goetz, & P. A. Alexander (Eds.), Learning and study strategies: Issues in assessment, instruction, and evaluation (pp. 41-61). San Diego, CA: Academic.

Palmer, D. J., & Goetz, E. T. (1988). Selection and use of study strategies: The role of studier’s beliefs about self and strategies. In C. E. Weinstein, E. T. Goetz, & P. A. Alexander (Eds.), Learning and study strategies: Issues in assessment, instruction, and evaluation (pp. 41-61). San Diego, CA: Academic.

Pintrich, P. R., & DeGroot, E. (1990). Motivational and self-regulated learning components of classroom academic performance. Journal of Educational Psychology, 82, 33-40

Palmer, D. J., & Goetz, E. T. (1988). Selection and use of study strategies: The role of studier’s beliefs about self and strategies. In C. E. Weinstein, E. T. Goetz, & P. A. Alexander (Eds.), Learning and study strategies: Issues in assessment, instruction, and evaluation (pp. 41-61). San Diego, CA: Academic.

Pintrich, P. R., & DeGroot, E. (1990). Motivational and self-regulated learning components of classroom academic performance. Journal of Educational Psychology, 82, 33-40

Pintrich, P. R., & DeGroot, E. (1990). Motivational and self-regulated learning components of classroom academic performance. Journal of Educational Psychology, 82, 33-40.

VanZile-Tamsen, C. & Livingston, Jennifer. J. A. (1999). The differential impact of motivation on the self regulated strategy use of high- and low-achieving college student. Journal of College Student Develompment, (40)1, 54-60. Retrieved from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232503812_The_differential_impact_of_motivation_on_the_self-regulated_strategy_use_of_high-_and_low-achieving_college_students

Vogeley, K., Kurthen, M., Falkai, P., & Maier, W. (1999). Essential functions of the human self model are implemented in the prefrontal cortex. Consciousness and Cognition, 8, 343-363.


To Infinity and Beyond: Metacognition Outside the Classroom

by Kyle E. Conlon, Ph.D., Stephen F. Austin State University

My wife, Lauren, and I met in graduate school while pursuing our doctoral degrees in social psychology. Since then, we’ve taught abroad in London, moved to two different states, landed jobs at the same institution—our offices are literally right next to each other’s—bought a house, and had a child. It’s fair to say that our personal and professional lives interweave. One of the great joys of having an academic partner is having someone with whom I can share the challenges and triumphs of teaching. Although we have long promoted the benefits of metacognition in our classrooms, we use metacognition in so many other domains of our lives as well. But the link between metacognitive practice in the classroom and real-world problem solving isn’t always clear for students.

In this post, I’ll discuss how facilitating metacognition among your students can benefit them long after they’ve finished your class, with an emphasis on two important life goals: financial planning and healthy eating.

Metacognition and Money

At first glance, a college student may find little connection between thinking about his or her test performance in an introductory psychology class and building a well-diversified investment portfolio years later. But the two are more intimately linked than they appear. Students who possess high metacognitive awareness are able to identify, assess, and reflect on the effectiveness of their study strategies. This process requires the development and cultivation of accurate self-assessment and self-monitoring skills (Dunlosky & Metcalfe, 2009). As teachers, then, we serve as primary stakeholders in our students’ metacognitive development.

Just as successful students think about their own thinking, successful investors spend a lot of time thinking about how to manage their money—how to invest it (stocks, bonds, REITs, etc.), how long to invest it, how to reallocate earnings over time, and so on. Smart investing is virtually impossible without metacognition: it requires you to continually assess and reassess your financial strategies as the markets move and shake.

Even if your students don’t plan on being the next Warren Buffet, financial thinking will play a central role in their lives. Budgeting, buying a house or a car, saving for retirement, paying off debt—all of these actions require some level of financial literacy (not to mention self-control). Of course, I’m not saying that students need a degree in finance to accomplish these goals, just that they are more easily attainable with strong metacognitive skills.

Indeed, financial security is elusive for many; for instance, the 2018 Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households found that many adults would struggle with a modest unexpected expense. There are real financial obstacles that families face, for sure. Because financial literacy has broad implications, from participation in the stock market (Van Rooj et al., 2011) to retirement planning (Lusardi & Mitchell, 2007), the transfer of metacognitive skills from academic to financial decisions may be especially paramount.

photo of stack of coins with each stack having more, and each stack having a little plant appear to be growing out of it.

Admittedly, when I was an 18-year-old college student, I didn’t think much about this stuff. (I was too busy studying for my psychology exams!) But now, years later, living on a family budget, I have a deep appreciation for how the metacognitive awareness I cultivated as a student prepared me to think about and plan for my financial future. For your students, the exams will end, but the challenges of adulthood lie ahead. Successfully navigating many of these challenges will require your students to be metacognitive about money.

Metacognition and Food

As with planning for one’s financial future, eating healthy food is a considerable challenge that involves tradeoffs: Do I eat the salad so I can keep my cholesterol low, or do I enjoy this piece of delicious fried chicken right now, cholesterol be damned? Anyone who’s ever struggled with eating healthy food knows that peak motivation tends to occur shortly after committing to the goal. You go to the grocery store and buy all the fruits and vegetables to replace the unhealthy food in your fridge, only to throw away most of it later that same week. Why is eating healthfully so difficult?

There is an important role for metacognition here. When I teach my Health Psychology students about healthy eating, I draw the habit cycle on the whiteboard: cue à routine à reward (Duhigg, 2012). I tell students that breaking a bad habit requires changing one piece of the cycle (routine). Keep the cue (“I’m hungry”) and the reward (“I feel good”) the same, just change the routine from mindlessly eating a bag of potato chips to purposefully eating an apple. Implicit in this notion is the need to be aware of what you’re eating and the benefits of doing so—in other words, metacognition. Another idea is to have students draw out their steps through the grocery store so they can see which aisles they tend to avoid and which aisles they tend to visit (the ones with processed food). Students gain metacognitive awareness by literally retracing their steps.

In college, I survived on sugar, sugar, and more sugar. (One category short of Buddy the Elf’s four main food groups.) Since then, my metabolism has slowed considerably. Fortunately, with the help of metacognition, I’ve changed my diet for the better. I also cook most meals for our family, so I’m constantly thinking about meal plans, combinations of healthy ingredients, and so on. For me, as for many people, healthy eating didn’t occur overnight; it was a long process of habit change aided by awareness and reflection of the food I was consuming. The good news for your students is that they have several opportunities every day to think intently about their food choices.

The Broad Reach of Metacognition

As a teacher, I love those “lightbulb” moments when a student makes a connection that was previously unnoticed. In this post, I’ve tried to connect metacognition in the classroom to two important life domains. By fostering metacognition, you’re indirectly and perhaps unknowingly teaching your students how to make sound decisions about their finances and eating habits—and probably hundreds of other important life decisions. Metacognition is not limited to exam grades and paper rubrics; it’s not confined to our classrooms. It’s one of those special, omnipresent skills that will help students flourish in ways they’ll never see coming.

References

Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (2019). Report on the economic well-being of U.S. households in 2018. https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/2018-report-economic-well-being-us-households-201905.pdf

Duhigg, C. (2012). The power of habit: Why we do what we do in life and business. Random House.

Dunlosky, J., & Metcalfe, J. (2009). Metacognition. Sage Publications, Inc.

Lusardi, A., & Mitchell, O. S. (2007). Financial literacy and retirement preparedness: Evidence and implications for financial education. Business Economics, 42(1), 35‒44.

Van Rooj, M., Lusardi, A., & Alessie, R. (2011). Financial literacy and stock market participation. Journal of Financial Economics, 101(2), 449‒472.


Teaching Study Skills Through Retrieval Practice, Interleaving, and Spaced Practice

by Dana Melone, Cedar Rapids Kennedy High School

We all want our students to study effectively. Many of our students fall into the trap of doing what they have always done. They do this for a lot of reasons. Maybe it has worked for them in the past and now suddenly their method is not working, maybe they were never taught how to study and assumed it must be intuitive, or maybe they have never needed to study in the past. The list can go on and on. As educators, we know that study habits are an important part of academic achievement.

I teach five sections of Advanced Placement Psychology with an average of about 150 students per school year. These students are sophomores, juniors, and seniors from a variety of different socioeconomic, racial and ethnic groups. My students also come in with a variety of experience in taking advanced courses and a variety of ranges of grade point averages. I talk with my students at the beginning of the school year about their study habits to determine whether I need to teach them study skills.

The words "Patterns of Misconceptions" are repeated several times

Here are just a few of the patterns of studying/learning misconceptions that I see:

Misconceptions
  • More time studying means better knowledge of the topic
  • Re-reading the content or re-reading the notes is effective studying
  • Re-examining course slides is effective studying
  • Flashcards of vocabulary will lead to exam success
  • Listening to music or watching TV while studying is ok
  • Using books and notes while studying is taking place is enough
  • Studying looks the same no matter the course or style of exam
  • Every item in the course must be studied

After seeing these patterns year after year, I wanted to teach my students effective study methods and the use of metacognition in studying. I wanted the focus to be on continuous modeling of this in the course and honest discussions about how this can be used at home as a study tool. For the past few years I have been focusing on clearing up misconceptions about studying, and teaching students methods of retrieval practice, interleaving multiple areas of content, and spacing out their retrieval practice over time for better retention. This focus helps my students provide their own feedback on what they know and do not know.

Retrieval practice is defined as “A learning strategy where we focus on getting information out” (retrievalpractice.org). This means I am teaching my students to talk, write, and answer questions about the content without looking at the material while they are doing it. By focusing on on retrieval over time (spacing of learning), plus weaving in multiple topics from the course at a time (interleaving), I am helping my students become self sufficient in determining what they know and what they do not know about the content and its connection to other units in the course.

I incorporate these three high efficacy learning strategies in my classroom in multiple ways and encourage students to use similar techniques in their own studying. Here are a few examples:

  • At the end of every unit I provide my students with an online questionnaire that sends them their results and results to me as well. This questionnaire poses questions asking them to state as much information about a current topic as they possibly can, to then connect that information to content from each of our previous units. They then reflect on what they remembered and how well they could connect it to other content areas. They are supposed to answer the questionnaire without referring to notes or text materials.
  • I provide students with multiple questions from a chapter and have them answer them in as much detail as they can without looking at their notes. They then change ink color and use books and notes answer what they could not originally answer on their own. This exercise provides them with a great visual of what they did and did not know for an entire unit. I call this a brain dump. This name is based off others I have seen in my professional networks. These can be used at any time in a unit, but I prefer to give these to students a week or so prior to an exam.
  • Another activity similar to a brain dump is a single topic retrieval activity. I take a topic that is addressed over multiple content areas and have them write down as much content as they can without their books or notes by applying it to each area it has appeared in. They then switch ink colors and walk around the room to fill in their gaps. This often includes a prediction of how it might appear in future topics. I call this a retrieval practice challenge. This activity reminds students that we have discussed this topic before from a different viewpoint or lense and allows them to have some predictive discussion of a new lens.

            My students have really responded to these methods but it has taken a lot of teaching and reteaching the method and the reasoning behind the use of the method. Many of them have started creating them for their other classes. I have seen a decrease in students asking me for fill in the blank study guides and an increase in students asking me for tips on how to use retrieval practice to study a variety of topics. My plan moving forward is to show students correlation data from their exams showing the relationship between retrieval practice and test scores.


Being Authentic: Modeling Metacognitive Growth and Connecting with Students

by Patrick Cunningham, Ph.D., Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology

Learning takes effort and can feel hard at times. Likewise, learning to manage one’s learning processes better, growing metacognitively, is an effortful process. Because approaches to learning are habitual, deeply ingrained over time, changing them is hard. Metacognitive growth often progresses in fits and starts with cycles improvement and relapse into old habits. This is true for our students and for us as instructors. Remembering this can help us help them better with metacognitive lessons that can guide them throughout their lives.

I often say that teaching students about metacognition and engaging them in their metacognitive growth is one of the most important and authentic things I do academically. I have expertise within my field (Mechanical Engineering, Dynamic Systems and Control) and I am accomplished at applying it to engineering problems. When I engage students in learning this content, I model this expertise. I strive to make my content-focused teaching authentic, but it isn’t authentic in the same way as providing instructional experiences for my students on metacognition. While I may know which disciplinary concepts students will likely struggle with, my struggles with those concepts are a distant memory. However, as I engage my students in metacognitive growth, i.e., changing my habitual approaches to learning, my struggles are concurrent with theirs.

image of a human figure helping another human figure up a hill

Becoming a student again

For example, I have encountered my metacognitive struggles as I have been learning German, initially as a hobby and now more intentionally as I prepare for a sabbatical in Germany. About a year-and-a-half ago I decided to sign up for a Duolingo account to see if I could resurrect and build on my prior German language experience. I had just signed my children up for accounts to practice Spanish and sensed an opportunity to finally work towards a long-held personal goal – becoming proficient in another language. Armed with my knowledge of metacognition, I wanted to make my practice effective and efficient. I set a modest but good practice goal of two grammar modules per day, and I jumped in. I have been consistent in my daily practice – only missing about three days in 18 months – and I have added some varied strategies to practice German – Duolingo stories (spoken dialogues with text), trying to use basic phrases in my daily life, and trying to read German news stories. However, I have also noticed some metacognitive pitfalls in my language practice, even as I have gotten more serious about it.

I have not engaged in recall practice, despite the pop-up messages reminding me that I should take time after a session to recall new vocabulary and key grammar and usage insights. I also know its value, but I tell myself I just don’t have time. I am avoiding a good strategy and making poor use of my metacognitive knowledge of strategies and tasks.

I also lack a clear learning goal. What does proficient mean? How will I know I have achieved it? What are appropriate incremental goals that build towards proficiency? Admittedly, for most of this time, this has been more of a hobby pursuit, but if I really want to develop the skill, I need more specific, even if still modest, learning goals. This is poor metacognitive planning.

Then there is how I track my progress. I am sad to say I have taken pride in the number of XP points (virtual points within Duolingo) I have accrued and the number of modules I have crossed off. They are easy to count, but this does not really assess my proficiency with the German language accurately. This is poor metacognitive monitoring of my learning.

Within the story modules, I am tentative and find myself relying too much on being able to hover over the words to see the definition before answering the comprehension questions. Why do I find it hard to commit to an answer, right or wrong, and learn from it? It feels hard, but as I tell my students, this is how you know you are learning. I am relying on a lower quality strategy because it feels good.

Acknowledging the Same Struggles

So, each time I bring up metacognition with my students, I am faced with the reality of my struggles with it, as demonstrated by the pitfalls in my German language practice. Thus, I teach about metacognition, not as an expert who has it all figured out, but rather as one who is, perhaps, further along the path. This is humbling. So, what can I do with this struggle? Can I really engage my students in their metacognitive growth if I am struggling with my own metacognitive growth? Yes! But how I go about it matters.

If I ignore talking about metacognition altogether, then I might avoid feeling uncomfortable about my failings with it. But I would not likely grow myself nor help my students grow metacognitively. If I pretend I have it all figured out, then I risk being found-out, losing my credibility, and sabotaging my students’ potential metacognitive growth.

However, if embrace my struggles with metacognition and am honest about them with my students, then I might be able to grow myself while I also help my students. There are at least two mechanisms for positive impact, acknowledging my similarity to my students and providing my students a concrete model of metacognitive growth in practice.

When I accept that I am like my students and my students are like me in struggling with metacognitive practice and growth (e.g., my German language studies), I gain a more complete view of my students. I can no longer view them as just lazy, unmotivated, or lacking in work ethic. Instead I can see sincere effort and a desire to learn and do well in classes, in spite of less effective learning behaviors. When I see my students in this way, I have a better attitude when I interact with them. This enables me to authentically praise the positive aspects of their learning behavior and to more gently challenge the less effective aspects they are relying on. It can move our interaction from a place of discouragement to one of encouragement and can help students to view their ability to grow into the learning challenge before them. When I recognize that my students have similar barriers to metacognitive growth as I do, I am able to be more compassionate and supportive as I help them face the challenges they experience in their learning.

Points of Connection

Sharing my own metacognitive struggles, e.g., with my German language practice, can provide a point of connection with my students. Students can have a hard time identifying with their instructors, viewing us as experts with experiences far removed from theirs. It is heartening to see students warm up to me and talk more openly and honestly about their approaches to learning when I have shared elements of my struggles with learning German. Suddenly, the relational distance between us shrinks because I have a present learning experience, concurrent with theirs, that they can readily identify with. Such authentic connections build trust and a foundation for a relationship, which can lead to further support and processing of their learning experiences.

Beyond forging an authentic connection, I can also constructively model of the effortful and continual path to becoming a more skillful learner, i.e., metacognitive growth. Sharing my critiques of my German language practice can demonstrate metacognitive evaluation of my learning processes and my openness to ongoing refinement. However, metacognitive growth does not stop with recognizing ineffective or less effective learning strategies. It requires doing something about it, enacting a productive change. For example, I could share a more refined and specific goal – such as, wanting to be able to engage in pleasantries and make small talk in German – which also helps direct my practice and how I monitor my progress.

How can this look within a specific class? This winter I have been teaching computer programming, and I have found it useful with a few students to draw analogies between my language practice and working towards proficiency with programming concepts. Becoming conversant in German requires more than just knowing German grammar rules, e.g., declensions for accusative cases. I must practice using it in conversation, that is, applying it. Similarly, to become proficient with programming I must know how to write conditional statements and loops, but I also must know how to apply them in various ways to accomplish a specified task – I have to practice applying the concepts. I was trying to model the need to align learning strategies with specific learning goals.

In summary, if I can identify with my students, I can better help them with their metacognitive growth. It helps me to be more gentle and supportive in my desire to see them grow metacognitively. It can also can help my students connect with me and see that they too can persist in their metacognitive growth when I am forthright with my metacognitive shortcomings. Being authentic matters and it can help me do what I think is the most important teaching that I do, helping my students become better learners. These are enduring lessons that can help them be successful throughout their lives, even if they forget the content that I was teaching!


Facilitating Metacognition in the Classroom: Teaching to the Needs of Your Students

by Gina Burkart, EdD, Learning Specialist, Clarke University 

Once instructors understand the strengths and weaknesses of students, they can begin to adapt how they deliver the content of their course in ways that their students will be able to connect with it. This makes self-assessments valuable tools for learning and teaching (Burkart, 2020). Self-Assessments help professors note students’ strengths, weaknesses, and perceptions of self so that they can teach curriculum to the needs of the students. This allows professors to use metacognition in their own teaching, i.e. metacognitive instruction.

Mapping Out a Plan for Teaching and Learning

In my own courses, student assessments guide me in using a chart to map out a plan of how to address students’ needs while teaching the planned curriculum on the syllabus. This allows me to be mindful of my teaching and how it is connecting with students as the semester unfolds. The chart helps me note and monitor my students’ strengths and weaknesses, how these may impact course goals/outcomes and strategies that I will use to help my students adapt to the content demands of the course. See Figure 1 for an example chart.

Likewise, it is also helpful to guide students in using metacognition to create their own learning plans for the semester. Creating learning plans can be an effective activity for the first meeting of the class, while going through the course syllabus.

To facilitate this activity, a professor might hand out the syllabus, give students 5-10 minutes to read through the syllabus, and then have them share responses to the following questions in small groups to more strategically and critically read the syllabus and discuss it with classmates:

  • What prior reading and writing experiences have shaped you as a learner?
  • Based on this course syllabus, what challenges do you anticipate?
  • What strategies and resources will you use to meet these challenges?
  • What are your goals for this course?
  • How can you connect the material of this course with your major?
  • How can we as your learning community support you with your learning and goals? What do you need from us?

The small groups can then be invited to share their responses with the large group and write them on the board. Professors might then take a picture of the board and refer back to it later to use as an informal student assessment to inform teaching.

Finally, students return to small groups to create a more detailed and personalized plan of what they might do in order to find success and meet the outcomes of class. Professors might provide a template of a learning plan that would guide students in going through the syllabus and pulling out key information to create the plan. See Figure 2 for an example student learning plan.

Having these types of activities and discussions at the beginning of a course empowers students, as they realize that they are in charge of their learning. As Biggs and Tang (2011) have recognized, student engagement increases when students feel co-ownership and empowerment in the classroom.

Adaptation for Online Courses

This metacognitive activity can also be adapted in an online course through Voice Thread. Voice Thread allows students to create and upload an interactive, video recording of themselves. I have asked students to respond to the same questions in a 3-5-minute Voice Thread video and to also respond to a classmate’s Voice Thread. Additionally, after completing the Voice Threads, students were required to electronically submit a learning plan based on the syllabus for course credit. Similar to the in-class discussions in the face-to-face class, this activity fosters the metacognitive monitoring process that Flavell (1979) described. As students reflect on the skills necessary for the course outcomes, prior metacognitive knowledge and experiences resurface as goals are set and strategies for achieving the goals are identified and shared. Professors are then also able to monitor the needs of the students and provide feedback related to goals and strategies.

In both instances, students are able to share about their learning in a social setting, which reminds students they are not alone in their learning. This is important because students learn about their own learning and self by reflecting on the learning of others (Mead, 1962/1934; Burkart, 2010).

Assignments and Activities that Continue to Foster Metacognitive Growth throughout the Semester

Professors can continue to foster metacognition throughout the semester by integrating assignments and activities that reinforce reflection on learning, strategies, and goal setting. For example, professors might begin each class period with a 1-minute pre-write where students list main points from the assigned readings, questions they want to discuss in class, and why the material is relevant and important. I often have students do this on an index card, and I collect them and use the cards to guide my teaching during the class. While students are engaged in group work, I quickly go through the cards, award a check, plus, or minus with brief comments (to show I value metacognitive work) and incorporate these into class participation points. Questions that students wanted to discuss in class are then discussed. Sometimes, I pose the questions to the large group for discussion. Other times, I distribute the questions to small groups and assign them to formulate a response for the rest of the class.

Not only does using students’ questions in class show students that they are being listened to, it acknowledges that their questions are valued and their preparatory work outside of class is connected to learning inside the classroom. And, based on their questions and class discussion, I rethink strategies and interventions to help students better access the course materials. As Simmons (2017) noted, this type of participatory pedagogy makes students more aware of their own cognitive processes.

The following is a list of activities that I have used or recommended to faculty to foster student metacognition in the classroom (Burkart, 2019):

  • 1-minute prewrite at the beginning of class
  • Create or model note-taking and reading that facilitates learning
  • Model thinking aloud with problem solving, reading, interpreting
  • Incorporate learning checks
  • Assign post-test or assignment analysis
  • Encourage learning material on all levels of learning by assessing and modeling strategies scholars use: concept mapping, reading journals, study/note journals, portfolios
  • Reward revision, rethinking, growth by awarding points to final products
  • Use wrappers while teaching
  • Encourage or arrange study groups
  • Relate the material to students’ lives and experiences
  • Create and assign course blogs with prompts that encourage reflection and discussion on goals, use of strategies, and challenges and growth with learning course material
  • Create group tests/assessments

While monitoring students’ needs and growth throughout the semester, professors can use this list to use metacognition in their own teaching—establish goals and integrate strategies to impact student learning. In turn, this will guide students in reflecting on their learning and increase engagement. Most importantly it provides practice in metacognition that empowers students to take control of their own learning that will carry over into other classes and their personal lives outside of the classroom.

References

Biggs, J. B., & Tang, C. (2011). Teaching for quality learning at the university: What the student does. Maidenhead, UK: Society for Research into Higher Education & Open University Press.

Burkart, G. (2019). Engaging the unengaged in the college classroom. Faculty workshop—by request, Clarke University, Dubuque, IA.

Burkart, G. (2010, Dec). First-Year College Student Beliefs about Writing Embedded in Online Discourse: An Analysis and Its Implications to Literacy Learning. (Unpublished doctoral dissertation). University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, IA.

Burkart, G. (2010, May). An analysis of online discourse and its application to literacy learning, The Journal of Literacy and Learning. Retrieved from http://www.literacyandtechnology.org/uploads/1/3/6/8/136889/jlt_v11_1.pdf#page=64

Mead, G. H. (1934). Mind, self, and society: From the standpoint of a social behaviorist. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Simmons, N. (2017). Participatory Pedagogy: Inviting Student Metacognition. Retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/developing_student_metacognition_simmons/


Getting to Know Your Students: Using Self-Assessment in the Classroom to Foster Metacognition

by Gina Burkart, EdD, Learning Specialist, Clarke University

The Process of Metacognition

As retention continues to dominate discussions at most universities, metacognition may provide much insight. Flavell’s (1979) early and hallmark work on metacognition defined metacognition as an individual’s reflection on how he or she learns and developed a model to depict the process of this reflection. According to Flavell (1979), metacognition “occurs through the actions and interactions” of “metacognitive knowledge,” “metacognitive experiences,” “goals/tasks,” “actions/strategies” (p. 906). Understanding how the metacognitive process impacts learning is key to developing effective curriculum, helping students learn material, and motivating students to learn.

Self-Assessment to Enhance One-on-one Mentoring

As the Learning Specialist at Clarke University, one of my responsibilities is meeting with, monitoring, and guiding students in finding effective learning strategies. In this role, I meet with students one-on-one, reach out to students who have received student concerns flags raised by professors, create and coordinate academic support (Academic Coaching and Supplemental instruction), collaborate and guide faculty in developing curriculum through workshops and consultations, and hire, train and supervise the Academic Coaches in the Academic Learning, mentor and meet with students placed on Academic Warning and Probation, and teach the College Study Strategy course and courses in the English department.

In working with students who have been placed on probation and warning, I find that students often fail because they lack motivation and purpose. And, commonly, the motivation and purpose have been affected by inaccurate metacognitive knowledge. Flavell’s (1979) model of Cognitive Monitoring offers a schema for understanding how this might occur and how to help students find motivation and purpose and improve their academic standing.

As noted earlier, Flavell (1979) found that our metacognitive knowledge is informed by our metacognitive experiences. Thus, negative experiences or experiences where distorted thought processes created inaccurate metacognitive knowledge about self might result in a lack of purpose or motivation. For example, if a first-year student fails two tests in Biology and compares himself or herself to some classmates who received As, he or she might conclude that he or she is incapable of learning Biology, is not capable of ever becoming a doctor, and should not attend college.

In meeting with the student, I would help the student reflect on how he or she was reading, studying, and taking notes in the Biology course. Additionally, I would help the student reflect on time management and organization strategies. I would also point out the flaw in comparing oneself with others in assessing one’s own abilities. Once the student realizes the flaws of thinking and forms new metacognitive knowledge and experiences, he or she works with me to establish realistic goals and implement new strategies for achieving the goals. Motivation and purpose then quickly improve, and students find success. In some instances students have moved from academic probation to Dean’s List in as little as one semester.

Helping students find success involves helping them discover what they believe about themselves (metacognitive self knowledge), setting goals and finding strategies to achieve the goals. To begin this process, students must first reflect on and assess themselves. As research has shown, unless the self-system is activated, learning will not occur (Mead, 1962/1934; Bandura, 1994; Marzano, 2001; Piaget, 1954; Vygotsky, 1934/1987; Burkart, 2010).

Incorporating Self-Assessment in the College Classroom

In addition to working with students in one-on-one mentoring, I have also found that this type of cognitive monitoring can be fostered in the classroom through the use of self-assessments. As demonstrated by Taraban (2019), self-assessments can be simple or more nuanced depending on the preferences of the professor and the needs of the course curriculum. The self-assessment can be created by the professor or be a nationally normed assessment. Additionally, the assessments can be closely connected to the outcomes of the course and revisited throughout the semester.

I have integrated self-assessments into my own teaching in a variety of ways. For example, in the College Study Strategy course that I teach, I begin the semester with an informal self-assessment by having students rate themselves (5 high and 1 low) in the following course content areas that impact academic performance: reading, time management, organization, test taking, and studying. Additionally, I have them identify strengths and weaknesses in each of these areas and set goals (See Figure 1 for a sample self-assessment and Figure 2 for a sample goal-setting chart).

Students then complete a more formal self-assessment, the nationally normed LASSI (Learning and Study Strategies Inventory). This self-assessment is quick and easy (takes about 10 minutes) and allows students to see how they compare nationally with other students taking the inventory in the following areas: Selecting Main Ideas, Information Processing, Time Management, Self-Testing, Motivation, Concentration, Attitude, Use of Academic Resources, and Test Taking. Students then share their assessments with each other in pairs and large group discussions. In almost all cases, the LASSI and informal assessments match and students find the LASSI results to be accurate. The comparison of data from a nationally normed self-assessment with an informal self-assessment offers students a way for checking the accuracy of their knowledge of self.

These assessments also provide purpose and focus for the course. Class discussion based on the self-assessment establishes buy-in from the students as they see personal need for the course. Additionally, I have found that starting the semester with these assessments frames the course in that I (as the professor) have a better understanding of their skill levels and needs and can connect their assessments to the course curriculum and outcomes.

For example, in Week One when we are going over Time Management and time management strategies, I can refer back to the students’ self-assessments and goals. Asking the students to recall their scores and goals begins the process of cognitive monitoring (Flavell, 1979). It creates purpose and motivation for the students to learn the curriculum I am teaching and integrate it into their courses so that they will begin to develop and apply the new time management strategies in order to achieve their time management goals.

Students are then tasked with implementing the strategies in their courses and asked to display artifacts of the implemented strategies in a midterm and final portfolio that is shared in a personal conference with me. For example, a student may include a long-term planner of the semester with mapped out projects, papers, tests, and athletic games to show that they have started to use macro-level planning for time management. They might also include sample pages from a weekly planner to show prioritized “to-do” lists and items crossed off—micro-level planning.

Students also assess themselves again with the same informal self-assessments at midterm and at the end of the semester. Additionally, they retake the LASSI at the end of the semester and use the self-assessments and artifacts to compile a portfolio that includes a one-page reflection. In the final conference meeting with me, students use the portfolio to demonstrate their growth, as they discuss their goals, strategies used, plans for future goals, and growth.

Integrating Self-Assessment—As a Tool of Metacognition

In assessing themselves, students gain knowledge of what they believe about themselves and how they learn. In reflecting on their assessments and discussing their experiences with me in conferences and with other students in the class, students uncover inaccurate perceptions of self. Additionally, they form goals and learn and develop strategies that positively affect their college learning experience. This sharing of information also allows me, as the professor and Learning Specialist, to also engage in metacognition as I teach and develop curriculum to meet the needs of my students throughout the semester (Burkart, 2017). And while some may question the validity of self-assessments, Nuhfer (2018), found self-assessments to not only be valid but also to be useful tools for both professors and students to monitor learning.

Above I offered examples of how self-assessment is easily integrated into a college study strategy course; however, it can easily be integrated into any course. For example, in teaching literature or writing courses, I create self-assessments unique to that content area and the course outcomes. In literature courses, on the first day of the semester, I ask students to assess themselves in the following areas: critical reading, writing, speaking, time management, and small group work. I also have students read through the syllabus, create goals for each of those areas, and identify strategies they will use to achieve those goals. Additionally, I have them respond to the following questions:

  • What do you hope to get out of this course? How does it connect with your career and life goals?
  • How can I help you achieve your goals?
  • What challenges do you anticipate this semester? What resources are available to help you meet those challenges?
  • What else do you want me to know about you and what you have going on this semester?

Students share their assessments in small groups. Then, as a large group, we discuss the assessments and the syllabus. I collect the assessments, comment on them, and then return them. Students refer back to them again at midterm and at the end of the semester when they complete synthesis reflections about their growth and achievement of course outcomes.

Benefits of incorporating student self-assessment

The inclusion of these assessments has been helpful in many ways. They have helped students feel that they are listened to by their professor. The assessments also assist me in quickly and easily conducting a needs assessment of my students so that I can reflect upon and adjust my teaching to their needs (i.e. engage in metacognitive instruction).

Most importantly, it encourages students to reflect on their own learning and empowers them to take control of their learning and results in increased motivation and a sense of purpose; this is the power of metacognition and why it matters to retention. When this recursive process activates the self-system (Mead, 1962/1934; Bandura, 1994; Marzano, 2001; Piaget, 1954; Vygotsky, 1934/1987; Burkart, 2010), it develops grit and a growth mindset (Burkart, 2010; Duckworth, 2019; Dweck, 2007). And as Flavell (1979) noted, fostering cognitive monitoring is an important part of learning, as there is “far too little rather than enough or too much cognitive monitoring in this world” (p. 910).

References

Bandura, A. (1994). Self-efficacy. In V. S. Ramachaudran (Ed.),        Encyclopedia of human behavior (Vol. 4, pp. 71-81). New     York: Academic Press. Retrieved from http://www.des.emory.edu/mfp/BanEncy.html

Burkart, G. (2017, 3rd ed). 16 weeks to college success. Kendall Hunt: Dubuque, IA.

Burkart, G. (2017, fall). Using the LASSI to engage metacognitive Strategies that foster a growth mindset in college students placed on academic probation (per request). LASSI in Action. Retrieved from https://www.hhpublishing.com/ap/_assessments/LASSI-in-Action-Articles/LASSI-In-Action-Fall-2017.pdf

Burkart, G. (2010, Dec). First-Year College Student Beliefs about Writing Embedded in Online Discourse: An Analysis and Its Implications to Literacy Learning. (Unpublished doctoral  dissertation). University of Northern Iowa, Cedar Falls, IA.

Burkart, G. (2010, May). An analysis of online discourse and its application to literacy learning, The Journal of Literacy and Learning. Retrieved from http://www.literacyandtechnology.org/uploads/1/3/6/8/136889/jlt_v11_1.pdf#page=64

Duckworth, A. L., Quirk, A. Gallop, R., Hoyle, R. H., Kelly, D. R., & Matthews, M. D. (2019). Cognitive and noncognitive predictors of success. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 116(47), 23499-23504. Doi:10.1073/pnas.1910510116.

Dweck, C. (2007). Mindset: The new psychology of success. New York: Ballantine Books.

Flavell, J. (1979). Metacognitive monitoring: A new area of cognitive development inquiry.           American Psychologist 34(10), 906-9-11.

Marzano, R. J. (2001). Designing a new taxonomy of educational objectives. Thousand Oaks, CA: Corwin Press.

Mead, G. H. (1934). Mind, self, and society: From the standpoint of a social behaviorist.

Nuhfer, E. (2018). Measuring metacognitive self-assessment: Can it help us assess higher-order thinking. Improve with Metacognition. Retrieved from

Piaget J. (1959). The language and thought of the child. Hove, UK: Psychology Press.

Taraban, R. (2019). The metacognitive reading strategies questionnaire (MRSQ): Cross-cultural comparisons. Improve with Metacognition. Retrieved from  https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/metacognitive-reading-strategies/

Vygotsky L. S. (1934/1987). Thinking and speech. The collected works of Lev Vygotsky (Vol. 1). New York, NY: Plenum Press.


Revising the Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (MAI) to be More User-Friendly

By: Melissa Terlecki, PhD, Cabrini University PA

Background

Measuring metacognition, or the awareness of one’s thoughts, is no easy task. Self-report may be limited and we may overestimate the frequency with which we use that information to self-regulate. However, in my quest to assess metacognition, I found the MAI, or the Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (Schraw and Dennison, 1994). The MAI, comparatively speaking, is one of the most widely used instruments. Schraw and Dennison found an alpha coefficient of .91 on each factor of the MAI and .95 for the entire MAI, which indicates reliability. Pintrich (2000) agrees the MAI has external validity given MAI scores and students’ academic achievement are highly correlated.

The Problem

Despite the wide use and application of the MAI, I found the survey measurement scale unfitting and constrictive. The survey consists of 52 questions with true or false response options. Some of the behaviors and cognitions measured on the MAI include, “I consider several alternatives to a problem before I answer,” “I understand my intellectual strengths and weaknesses,” “I have control over how well I learn,” and “I change strategies when I fail to understand”, just to name a few (see https://services.viu.ca/sites/default/files/metacognitive-awareness-inventory.pdf).

Though these questions are valid, to dichotomously respond to an extreme “true”, as in I always do this, OR a “false”, as in I never do this, is problematic. Yes-No responses also make for difficult quantitative analysis. All or nothing responses makes hypothesis testing (non-parametric testing) challenging. I felt that if the scale was changed to be Likert-type, then participants could more accurately self-report on how often they may exhibit these behaviors or cognitions, and we could more readily assess variability and change.

The Revised MAI

Thus, I revised the MAI to use a five-point Likert-type rating scale, ranging from “I never do this” to “I do this always” (see Figure 1). Five points also allows a middle rating with  two extremes on either side (always/never). It is important to note that the original content of the survey questions has not been altered.  

My recent findings (Terlecki & McMahon, 2018; Terlecki & Oluwademilade, in preparation) show the revised MAI to be effective as a pre- and post-test measure to assess the growth due to metacognitive instruction, compared to controls with varying levels of instruction, in college students.

Five example MAI items with the new Likert-scale response options.

Figure 1. Revised MAI likert-scale (Terlecki & McMahon, 2018). Response scale adapted  from Schraw and Dennison (1994) with permission from Sperling (Dennison).

In our longitudinal sample of roughly 500 students, results showed that students exposed to direct metacognitive instruction (across a one semester term) yielded the greatest improvements on the revised MAI (compared to controls), although maturation (age and level in school) had a moderating effect. Thus, we concluded that students who were deliberately taught metacognitive strategies did exhibit an increase in their cognitive awareness, as measured by the revised MAI, regardless of initial levels of self-awareness. In other words, the older one is, the greater the likelihood one may be self-aware; however, explicit metacognitive intervention still boasts improvements.

These changes might not have been elucidated using the original, dichotomous true/false response options. The revised MAI is a useful tool in measuring such metacognitive behaviors and whether changes in frequency may occur over time or intervention. Likewise, anecdotal evidence from my participants, as well as researchers, supports the ease of reporting using this Likert-scale, in comparison to the frustration of using the 2-point bifurcation. Still, usage of the revised MAI in more studies will be required to validate.

Suggestions for Future Usage of the MAI & Call for Collaboration

The Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (MAI) is a common assessment used to measure metacognition. Quantifying metacognition proves challenging, yet this revised instrument appears promising and has already provided evidence that metacognition can grow over time. The addition of a wider range of response options should be more useful in drilling down to frequency of usage of metacognitive behaviors and thinking.

Validation studies on the revised scoring have yet to be conducted, thus if other researchers and/or authors are interested in piloting the revised MAI, please contact me (* see contact information below). It would be great to collaborate and collect more data using the Likert-form, as well as have a larger sample that would allow us to run more advanced statistics on the reliability and validity of the new scaling.

References

Pintrich, P.R. (2000). Issues in self-regulation theory and research. Journal of Mind and Behavior, 21, 213-220.

Schraw, G., & Dennison, R. S. (1994). Assessing metacognitive awareness. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 19(4), 460-475.

Terlecki, M. & McMahon, A. (2018). A call for metacognitive intervention: Improvements due to curricular programming and training. Journal of Leadership Education, 17(4), doi:10.12806/V17/I4/R8

Terlecki, M. & Oluwademilade, A. (2020). The effects of instruction and maturity on metacognition (in preparation).

*Contact: If looking to collaborate or validate the revised instrument, please contact Melissa Terlecki at mst723@cabrini.edu.

If you’d like to compare the MAI to other metacognition assessment inventories, please see “A Non-Exhaustive List of Quantitative Tools to Assess Metacognition” by Jessica Santangelo.


Metacognitively meeting students where they are

John Draeger, SUNY Buffalo State

The Teaching and Learning Center at SUNY Buffalo State hosts a regular breakfast conversation on Friday mornings. Faculty and staff gather around coffee, bagels, and a common reading. This fall we read Becoming a Student-Ready College: A new culture of leadership for success (McNair et al., 2016). The book chronicles recent changes in higher-education. More and more students are the first in their families to go to college. More come from communities of color. More work full-time and find it necessary to take care of family members while attending school. I love the underlying premise of the book. The question is NOT what students are doing to ready for us. Rather, the question is what WE are doing to get ready for THEM.

This post argues that promoting metacognition is necessary if we are going to meet the needs of our current students. Metacognition prompts us to be aware of what students need and points the way towards the necessary adjustments.

We can do better and we must do better. Students are stopping out at alarming rates. In some cases, this is simply because they didn’t successfully navigate obtuse institutional expectations. For example, how many times do we ask students to crisscross campus for this signature on that form only to be told they need to come back later? Come to think of it, how many institutional procedures actually make sense? Many policies kept alive by sheer institutional inertia. Those of us who have been around long enough may know how to navigate them, but this is profoundly unfair to students.

McNair et al. encourage each of us to ask the questions that pave the way for student success, even when (perhaps especially when) it is uncomfortable. They call on campuses to embrace a leadership model that is simultaneously bottom-up, top-down, and inside-out. Everyone must take it upon themselves to live into their role in creating a study-ready campus.

Senior leadership needs to articulate a vision of the campus needs to do to be ready for students.  Shared governance bodies need to hold the campus accountable. Offices across campus can, and should, reflect on the policies, procedures, attitudes, and behaviors that might inadvertently impede student success. While no one person can transform the campus, each person can clean up their own corner of it. How can departments align learning outcomes with the needs of current students? How can faculty explore whether and how their classroom methods facilitate student learning of all students? And how can everyone on campus be mindful of the many points of view represented by our diverse student bodies, and strive to overcome stereotypes and implicit bias to demonstrate a steadfast belief in students?

Each chapter of the book offers a series of guiding questions to frame campus discussions. They are, in essence, offering a metacognitive approach to culture change. It can happen. Jen McCabe and Justine Chasmar outline how Goucher College has been transformed through metacognition (McCabe & Chasmar, 2018). Of note, the Goucher initiative was kicked off by their president, Jose Antonio Bowen. While it takes a campus become student-ready, senior leadership can play an important role in framing the conversation. Regardless, the conversation needs to happen if campuses are to meet students where they are.

This site defines ‘metacognition” as “an intentional focusing of attention on a process in which one is personally engaged. It encourages awareness of one’s current state of accomplishment, along with the situational influences and strategy choices that are currently, or have previously, influence accomplishment of that process.” Becoming student ready requires that each and every person be personally engaged with student success. Individuals and offices across campus need to critically assess the current state of affairs. Is this a student ready campus? If not, then what are the situational influences keeping that from happening?

If change is necessary, then what strategy choices are mostly likely to influence that process? Progress should be monitored so that all involved are aware of the current state of accomplishment. If the current strategies are not resulting in a student-ready campus, then further thought should be put to how campuses will make the necessary adjustments. In short, metacognition is necessary if colleges and universities are to become student-ready.

References

McCabe, J. & Chasmar, J. (posted December 10, 2018). “Metacognition at Goucher I: Framework and Implementation.” Retrieved from https://www.improvewithmetacognition.com/metacognition-at-goucher-i-framework-and-implementation/.

McNair, T. B., Bensimon, E., Cooper, M. A., McDonald, N., & Major Jr, T. (2016). Becoming a student-ready college: A new culture of leadership for student success. John Wiley & Sons.

 

 


Micro-Metacognition Makes It Manageable

By Dr. Lauren Scharff, U. S. Air Force Academy *

For many of us, this time of year marks an academic semester’s end. It’s also intertwined with a major holiday season. There is so much going on – pulling our thoughts and actions in a dozen different directions. It almost seems impossible to be metacognitive about what we’re doing while we’re doing it: grading that last stack of exams or papers, finalizing grades, catching up on all those work items that have been on the back burner but need to get done before the semester ends. And that’s just a slice of our professional lives. Add in all the personal tasks and aspirations for these final few weeks of the year, and it’s Go, Go, Go until the day is over.

Well, that was a bit cathartic to get out, but also a bit depressing. Logically I know that by taking the time to reflect and use that awareness to help guide my behaviors (i.e. engage in metacognition), I will feel energized and revitalized because I’ll have a plan with a good foundation. I will more likely be successful in whatever it is I’m hoping to accomplish, especially if I regularly take the time to reflect and fine tune my efforts. But the challenge is, how do I fit it all in?

My proposed solution is micro-metacognition!

So, what do I mean by that? I think micro-metacognition is analogous to taking the stairs whenever you can rather than signing up for a new gym membership. Stairs are readily available at no cost and can be used spur-of-the-moment. In comparison, the gym membership requires a more concerted effort and larger chunks of time to get to the facility, work out, clean up and head home. In the more academic realm, micro metacognition falls in line with the spirit of James Lang’s (2016) Small Teaching recommendations. He advocates for the powerful impact of even small changes in our teaching (e.g. how we use the first 5 minutes of class). In other words, we don’t have to completely redesign a course or our way of teaching to see large benefits.

To help place micro-metacognition into context, I will borrow a framework from Poole and Simmons (2013), who suggested a “4M” model for conceptualizing the level of impact of SoTL work: micro (individual/classroom), meso (department/ program), macro (institutional), and mega (beyond a single institution). In this case though, we’re looking at engagement in metacognitive practices, so the entity or level of focus will always be the individual, and the scale will refer to the amount of planning, effort, and time needed for the metacognitive practice. This post focuses on instructors being metacognitive about their practice of teaching, but I believe that parallels can easily be made for students’ engagement in metacognition as they are learning.  

The 4M Metacognition Framework

Micro-metacognition – Use of isolated, low-cost tactics to promote metacognitive instruction when engaged in single tasks (e.g. grading a specific assignment – see below for fleshed out example). These can be used without investments in advance planning.

Meso-metacognition – Use of tactics to promote metacognitive instruction throughout an individual lesson or when incorporating a specific type of activity (e.g. discussion or small group work) across multiple lessons. These tactics have been given more forethought with respect to integration with lesson / activity objectives.  

Macro-metacognition – Use of more regular tactics to promote metacognitive instruction across an entire course / semester. Planning for these would be more long-term and closely integrated with learning objectives for the course or with professional development goals of the instructor.  (For an example of this level of effort, see Use of a Guided Journal to Support Development of Metacognitive Instructors.)

Mega-metacognition – Use of tactics to promote metacognitive instruction across an instructor’s entire set of courses and professional activities (and beyond). At this level of engagement, metacognition will likely be a “way of doing things” for the instructor, but each new engagement will still require conscious effort and planning to support goals and objectives.

An Example of Micro Metacognition

Micro-metacognition  efforts are not pre-planned when the instructional task is planned; they are added later as the idea crosses the instructor’s mind and opportunity arises.

For example, when I am about to start grading a specific group of papers, I might reflect that in addition to the formally-stated learning objectives that will be assessed on the rubric, I want to support growth mindset in my students for their future writing efforts. This additional goal could come about from a recent reading on mindset or discussion with my colleagues. I know that I would be likely to forget this goal when I’m focused on the other rubric aspects of the grading. So, I write that goal on a stickie note and put it where I am likely to see it when grading. Then, when I am grading, I have an easy-to-implement awareness aide to add comments in the papers that might specifically support my students’ growth mindset.

Image showing an office with a sticky note stuck to the corner of a computer screen. The note says "Promote Growth Mindset -- encourage exploration of new ideas & connections"

In sum:  easily implemented stickie note –> promotes awareness of goal –> self-regulation of desired grading behavior on that specific instructional task == Micro-metacognitive Instruction!

I can think of lots of other ways instructors might incorporate micro-metacognition in their instructional endeavors, from the proverbial string tied to one’s finger, to pop-up calendar prompts, to asking a student for a reminder to attend to questions when we get to a particular topic.  Or, awareness might come without an intentional prompt. The key is to then use that awareness to self-regulate some aspect of our instructional behavior in support of student learning and development. The opportunities are endless!

I hope you are motivated as you enter the new year. Happy holidays!

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Lang, J. M. (2016). Small teaching: Everyday lessons from the science of learning.

Poole, G., & Simmons, N. (2013). The contributions of the scholarship of teaching and learning to quality enhancement in Canada. In G. Gordon, & R. Land (Eds.). Quality enhancement in higher education: International perspectives (pp. 118-128). London: Routledge.

* Disclaimer: The views expressed in this document are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the U. S. Air Force, Department of Defense, or the U. S. Govt.


Metacognitive Self-Assessment, Competence and Privilege

by Steven Fleisher, Ph.D., California State University Channel Islands

Recently I had students in several of my classes take the Science Literacy Concept Inventory (SLCI) including self-assessment (Nuhfer, et al., 2017). Science literacy addresses one’s understanding of science as a way of knowing about the physical world. This science literacy instrument also includes self-assessment measures that run parallel with the actual competency measures. Self-assessment skills are some of the most important of the metacognitive competencies. Since metacognition involves “thinking about thinking,” the question soon becomes, “but thinking about what?”

Dunlosky and Metcalfe (2009) framed the processes of metacognition across metacognitive knowledge, monitoring, and control. Metacognitive knowledge involves understanding how learning works and how to improve it. Monitoring involves self-assessment of one’s understanding, and control then involves any needed self-regulation. Self-assessment sits at the heart of metacognitive processes since it sets up and facilitates an internal conversation in the learner, for example “Am I understanding this material at the level of competency needed for my upcoming challenge?” This type of monitoring then positions the learner for any needed control or self-regulation, for instance “Do I need a change my focus, or maybe my learning strategy?” Further, self-assessment is affective in nature and is central to how learning works. From a biological perspective, learning involves the building and stabilizing of cognitive as well as affective neural networks. In other words, we not only learn about “stuff”, but if we engage our metacognition (specifically self-assessment in this instance), we are enhancing our learning to include knowing about “self” in relation to knowing about the material.

This Improve with Metacognition posting provides information that was shared with my students to help them see the value of self-assessing and for understanding its relationship with their developing competencies and issues of privilege. Privilege here is defined by factors that influence (advantage or disadvantage) aggregate measures of competence and self-assessment accuracy (Watson, et al., 2019). Those factors involved: (a) whether students were first-generation college students, (b) whether they were non-native English-language students, and (c) whether they had an interest in science.

The figures and tables below result from an analysis of approximately 170 students from my classes. The narrative addresses the relevance of each of the images.

Figure 1 shows the correlation between students’ actual SLCI scores and their self-assessment scores using Knowledge Survey items for each of the SLCI items (KSSLCI). This figure was used to show students that their self-assessments were indeed related to their developing competencies. In Figure 2, students could see how their results on the individual SLCI and KSSLCI items were tracking even more closely than in Figure 1, indicating a fairly strong relationship between their self-assessment scores and actual scores.

scatterplot graph of knowledge survey compared to SCLI scores
Figure 1. Correlation with best-fit line between actual competence measures via a Science Literacy Concept Inventory or SLCI (abscissa) and self-assessed ratings of competence (ordinate) via a knowledge survey of the inventory (KSSLCI) wherein students rate their competence to answer each of the 25 items on the inventory prior to taking the actual test.
scatter plot of SCLI scores and knowledge survey scores by question
Figure 2. Correlation with best-fit line between the group of all my students’ mean competence measures on each item of the Science Literacy Concept Inventory (abscissa) and their self-assessed ratings of competence on each item of the knowledge survey of the inventory (KSSLCI).

Figure 3 demonstrates the differences in science literacy scores and self-assessment scores among their different groups as defined by the number of science courses taken. Students could readily see the relationship between the number of science courses taken and improvement in science literacy. More importantly in this context, students could see that these groups had a significant sense of whether or not they knew the information, as indicated by the close overlapping of each pair of green and red diamonds. Students learn that larger numbers of participants can provide more confidence to where the true means actually lies. Also, I can show the meaning of variation differences within and between groups. In answering questions about how we know that more data would clarify relationships, I bring up an equivalent figure from our national database that shows the locations of the means within 99.9% confidence and the tight relationship between groups’ self-assessed competence and their demonstrated competence.

categorical plot by number of college science courses completed
Figure 3. Categorical plot of my students in five class sections grouped by their self-identified categories of how many college-level science courses that they have actually completed. Revealed here are the groups’ mean SLCI scores and their mean self-assessed ratings. Height of the green (SLCI scores) and red (KSSLCI self-assessments) diamonds reveals with 95% confidence that the actual mean lies within these vertical bounds.

Regarding Figure 4, it is always fun to show students that there’s no significant difference between males and females in science literacy competency. This information comes from the SLCI national database and is based on over 24,000 participants.

categorical plot by binary gender
Figure 4. Categorical plot from our large national database by self-identified binary gender categories shows no significant difference by gender in competence of understanding science as a way of knowing.

It is then interesting to show students in that, in their smaller sample (Figure 5), there is a difference between the science literacy scores of males and females. The perplexed looks on their faces are then addressed by the additional demographic data in Table 1 below.

categorical plot by binary gender for individual class
Figure 5. Categorical plot of just my students by binary gender reveals a marginal difference between females and males, rather than the gender-neutral result shown in Fig. 4.

In Table 1, students could see that higher science literacy scores for males in their group were not due to gender, but rather, were due to significantly higher numbers of English as a non-native language for females. In other words, the women in their group were certainly not less intelligent, but had substantial, additional challenges on their plates.  

Table 1: percentages of male and female students as first generation, English and non-native speaker, and with respect to self-report interest to major in science

Students then become interested in discovering that the women demonstrated greater self-assessment accuracy than did the men, who tended to overestimate (Figure 6). I like to add here, “that’s why guys don’t ask for directions.” I can get away with saying that since I’m a guy. But more seriously, I point out that rather than simply saying women need to improve in their science learning, we might also want to help men improve in their self-assessment accuracy.   

categorical plot by gender including self-assessment data
Figure 6. The categorical plot of SLCI scores (green diamonds) shown in Fig. 5 now adds the self-assessment data (red diamonds) of females and males. The trait of females to more accurately self-assess that appears in our class sample is also shown in our national data. Even small samples taken from our classrooms can yield surprising information.

In Figure 7, students could see there was a strong difference in science literacy scores between Caucasians and Hispanics in my classes. The information in Table 2 below was then essential for them to see. Explaining this ethnicity difference offers a wonderful discussion opportunity for students to understand not only the data but what it reveals is going on with others inside their classrooms.

Figure 7. The categorical plot of SLCI scores by the two dominant ethnicities in my classroom. My campus is a Hispanic Serving Institution (HSI). The differences shown are statistically significant.

Table 2 showed that the higher science literacy scores in this sample were not simply due to ethnicity but were impacted by significantly greater numbers of first-generation students and English as a non-native language between groups. These students are not dumb but do not have the benefits in this context of having had a history of education speak in their homes and are navigating issues of English language learning. 

Table 2: percentage of white and hispanic students who report to be first generation students, English as non-native speakers, and interested in majoring in science.

When shown Figure 8, which includes self-assessment scores as well as SLCI scores, students were interested to see that both groups demonstrated fairly accurate self-assessment skills, but that Hispanics had even greater self-assessment accuracy than their Caucasian colleagues. Watson et. al (2019) noted that strong self-assessment accuracy for minority groups comes about from a need for being understandably cautious.

categorical plot by ethnicity and including self-assessment
Figure 8. The categorical plot of SLCI scores and self-assessed competence ratings for the two dominant ethnicities in my classroom. Groups’ collective feelings of competence, on average, are close to their actual competence. Explaining these results offered a wonderful discussion opportunity for students.

Figure 9 shows students that self-assessment is real. In seeing that most of their peers fall within an adequate range of self-assessment accuracy (between +/- 20 percentage points), students begin to see the value of putting effort into developing their own self-assessment skills. In general, results from this group of my students are similar to those we get from our larger national database (See our earlier blog post, Paired Self-Assessment—Competence Measures of Academic Ranks Offer a Unique Assessment of Education.)

distribution of self-assessment accuracy for individual course
Figure 9. The distribution of self-assessment accuracy of my students in percentage points (ppts) as measured by individuals’ differences between their self-assessed competence by knowledge survey and their actual competence on the Concept inventory.

Figure 10 below gave me the opportunity to show students the relationship between their predicted item-by-item self-assessment scores (Figure 9) and their postdicted global self-assessment scores. Most of the scores fall between +/- 20 percentage points, indicating good to adequate self-assessment. In other words, once students know what a challenge involves, they are pretty good at self-assessing their competency.

distribution of self-assessment accuracy for individual course after taking SCLI
Figure 10. The distribution of self-assessment accuracy of my students in percentage points (ppts) as measured by individuals’ differences between their postdicted ratings of competence after taking the SLCI and their actual scores of competence on the Inventory. In general, my students’ results are similar in self-assessment measured in both ways.

In order to help students further develop their self-assessment skills and awareness, I encourage them to write down how they feel they did on tests and papers before turning them in (postdicted global self-assessment). Then they can compare their predictions with their actual results in order to fine-tune their internal self-assessment radars. I find that an excellent class discussion question is “Can students self-assess their competence?” Afterward, reviewing the above graphics and results becomes especially relevant. We also review self-assessment as a core metacognitive skill that ties to an understanding of learning and how to improve it, the development of self-efficacy, and how to monitor their developing competencies and control their cognitive strategies.

References

Dunlosky, J. & Metcalfe, J. (2009). Metacognition. Sage Publications Inc., Thousand Oaks, CA.

Nuhfer, E., Fleisher, S., Cogan, C., Wirth, K., & Gaze, E. (2017). How Random Noise and a Graphical Convention Subverted Behavioral Scientists’ Explanations of Self-Assessment Data: Numeracy Underlies Better Alternatives. Numeracy, Vol 10, Issue 1, Article 4. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5038/1936-4660.10.1.4

Watson, R., Nuhfer, E., Nicholas Moon, K., Fleisher, S., Walter, P., Wirth, K., Cogan, C., Wangeline, A., & Gaze, E. (2019). Paired Measures of Competence and Confidence Illuminate Impacts of Privilege on College Students. Numeracy, Vol 12, Issue 2, Article 2. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5038/1936-4660.12.2.2


The Metacognitive Reading Strategies Questionnaire (MRSQ): Cross-Cultural Comparisons

by Roman Taraban, Ph.D. Texas Tech University

When you read, do you ask yourself whether the material is contributing to your knowledge of the subject, whether you should revise your prior knowledge, or how you might use the new knowledge that you are acquiring?  Do you highlight information or make notes in the margins to better remember and find information later on? Prior research by Pressley and colleagues (e.g., Pressley & Afflerbach, 1995) suggested that the type of metacognitions suggested by reading strategies like these were critical for effective reading comprehension.  

photo of a stack of books with a pair of reading glasses on top

Inspired by that research, Taraban et al. (2000) conducted a study involving 340 undergraduates and 35 reading strategies like those suggested by Pressley and colleagues and found that self-reports of strategy use were significantly associated with grade-point averages (GPA). Specifically, students who reported higher use of reading strategies also had higher GPAs.  Additionally, responses to open-ended questions showed that students who could name more reading strategies and reading goals also had significantly higher GPAs. 

The data in Taraban et al. (2000) overwhelmingly suggested a strong positive relationship between students’ knowledge and use of reading goals and strategies and their academic performance.  More generally, data by Taraban et al. and others suggest that effective reading depends on metacognitive processing – i.e., on directed cognitive effort to guide and regulate comprehension. Skilled readers know multiple strategies and when to apply them. In the remainder of this post, I review subsequent developments associated with metacognitive reading strategies, including cross-cultural comparisons, as well as raising a question about the relevance of these strategies to present-day text processing and comprehension given widespread technological developments.

Analytic VS Pragmatic Reading Strategies

In 2004, my students and I created a questionnaire, dubbed the Metacognitive Reading Strategies Questionnaire (MRSQ) (Taraban et al., 2004). The questionnaire drew on the strategies tested earlier in Taraban et al. (2000) and organized the strategies into two subscales through factor analytic methods: analytic strategies and pragmatic strategies.  The analytic scale relates to cognitive strategies like making inferences and evaluating the text (e.g., After I read the text, I consider other possible interpretations to determine whether I understood the text.). The pragmatic scale relates to practical methods for finding and remembering information from the text (e.g., I try to underline when reading in order to remember the information.). Students respond to these statements using a five-point Likert-type scale: Never Use, Rarely Use, Sometimes Use, Often Use, Always Use.

Initial applications of the MRSQ suggested that the two-factor model could aid in better understanding students’ use of metacognitive comprehension strategies.  Specifically, in students’ self-reports of expected GPA for the coming academic year, there was a significant positive correlation with analytic strategies but a non-significant correlation with pragmatic strategies, which suggested that students who reported higher use of analytic strategies also anticipated doing well academically in the coming academic year.

Cross-Cultural Explorations of Reading Strategies

Vianty (2007) used the MRSQ to explore difference in students’ use of metacognitive reading strategies in their native language, Bahasa Indonesia, and their second language, English. Participants were students in a teacher education program who completed the MRSQ in English and Bahasa Indonesia. Vianty found that students processed language differently in their native language compared to a non-native language.

In comparing mean use of analytic strategies when reading in their native language compared to English, Vianty found that nearly all means were higher for Bahasa Indonesia.  T-tests showed significant differences favoring Bahasa Indonesia for eight out of sixteen analytic strategies. Conversely, four of the six pragmatic strategies were favored when reading English, however, only one difference (I take notes when reading in order to remember the information) was significant on a t-test. Vianty concluded that students used analytic strategies significantly more in Bahasa Indonesia than English. Conversely, use of pragmatic strategies was higher when reading in English, but the effect was weak.

Taraban et al. (2013) compared US and Indian engineering undergraduates on their application of analytic and pragmatic strategies. The language of instruction in Indian universities is English; however, this is not typically the native language (the mother tongue) of the students.  Therefore, the researchers predicted lower use of analytic strategies and higher use of pragmatic strategies among Indian students compared to US students, reasoning from the findings in Vianty (2007). The latter but not former prediction was supported. Indeed, Indian students applied analytic strategies significantly more frequently than US students.  Pragmatic strategy use was significantly lower than analytic strategy use for US students but not for Indian students, who applied analytic and pragmatic strategies equally often.  Contrary to the findings in Vianty (2007), these findings suggest that students can make significant use of analytic and pragmatic strategies in a non-native language.

The most comprehensive cross-linguistic comparison was conducted recently by Gavora et al. (2019), who compared analytic and pragmatic strategy use, measured by variants of the MRSQ, among 2692 students from Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic, enrolled in education programs, primarily teacher and counseling.  Students in Hungary, Slovakia, and the Czech Republic reported significantly higher use of pragmatic over analytic strategies. Students in Poland showed a converse preference, reporting significantly more frequent use of analytic strategies. Quite striking in the results were the significant correlations between pragmatic strategy use and GPA, and analytic strategy use and GPA, for all four countries.  Specifically, the correlation showed that higher frequency use of both pragmatic and analytic strategies was associated with more successful academic performance.

Gavora et al. (2019) suggest that “In order to succeed academically, students direct their reading processes not towards comprehension but to remembering information, which is the core component of the pragmatic strategy” (p. 12). Their recommendation, that “educators’ attention should be focused on developing especially analytic strategies in students,” is strongly reminiscent of the ardor with which Pressley and colleagues began promoting metacognitive reading strategies beginning in the elementary grades. 

However, given the significant correlations between both analytic and pragmatic strategy use with GPA, it may be that the predominance of analytic strategies is not what is important, but whether application of either type of strategy – analytic or pragmatic – aids students in their academic achievement. The data from Vianty (2007) may be informative in this regard, specifically, the finding that those students applied pragmatic strategies more frequently than analytic strategies when the context – reading outside their native language – dictated a more pragmatic approach to reading and comprehension.

A relevant point made by Gavora et al. relates to the samples that have been tested to-date, and the relevance of context to strategy use. They point out that in contexts like engineering (e.g., Taraban et al., (2013), the context may support more analytic thinking and analytic strategy use.  The Gavora et al., sample consisted of humanities students, which, on their argument, may have resulted in an overwhelming affirmation of pragmatic strategies. Further comparisons across students in different programs is certainly warranted.

Changing Times: The Possible Influence of Technology on Reading

An additional question comes to mind, which is the effect of widespread technology in instructional settings. When I, like others, am uncertain about a definition, algorithm, theory, etc., I find it very easy to simply Google the point or look for a YouTube, which I simply need to read or watch for an explanation. This personal observation suggests that perhaps the strategies that are probed in the MRSQ may, at this point, be incomplete, and in some instances, somewhat irrelevant.  The next step should be to ask current students what strategies they use to aid comprehension. Their responses may lead to new insights into contemporary student metacognitions that assist them in learning.

In conclusion, there is no doubt that metacognitive strategies are essential to effective information processing.  However, there may be room to reconsider and update the strategies that students employ when reasoning and searching for information and insights to guide and expand comprehension and learning.  It may be that current technology has made students more pragmatic and a promising goal for further research would be to uncover the ways in which that pragmatism is being expressed through new search strategies.

References

Gavora, P., Vaculíková, J., Kalenda, J., Kálmán, O., Gombos, P., Świgost, M., & Bontová, A. (2019). Comparing metacognitive reading strategies among university students from Poland, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. Journal of Further and Higher Education, 1-15.

Pressley, M., & Afflerbach, P. (1995). Verbal protocols of reading: The nature of constructively responsive reading. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Taraban R, Kerr M, Rynearson K (2004) Analytic and pragmatic factors in college students’ metacognitive reading strategies. Reading Psychology, 25(2), 67–81.

Taraban, R., Rynearson, K., & Kerr, M. (2000). College students’ academic performance and self-reports of comprehension strategy use. Reading Psychology, 21, 283–308.

Taraban, R., Suar, D., & Oliver, K. (2013). Information literacy of US and Indian engineering undergraduates. SpringerPlus, 2(1), 244.

Vianty, M. (2007). The comparison of students’ use of metacognitive reading strategies between reading in Bahasa Indonesia and in English. International Education Journal,8(2), 449–460.