Scholarly Research Journal for Interdisciplinary Studies, Online ISSN 2278-8808, SJIF 2016 = 6.17, www.srjis.com UGC Approved Sr. No.49366, NOV-DEC 2017, VOL- 4/37 https://doi.org/10.21922/srjis.v4i37.10551
METACOGNITIVE AWARENESS OF COLLEGE STUDENTS: PERSPECTIVES OF AGE AND GENDER Satyavrata Panda Research Scholar, Department of Psychology, Ravenshaw University, Cuttack, Odisha, India
The study examined the perspectives of age and gender on the development of metacognitive awareness of college students. Four hundred students including equal number of boys and girls in five age groups of 14 to 24 years were administered the Metacognitive Awareness Inventoryto measure their metacognitive knowledge, regulation and executive control. Each of these constructs was measured through its relevant skills. With respect to the nature of development, the results showed low, slow but consistent development of the skills across the span of 10 years of college life. The developments were also observed to follow the predicted sequence, i.e., metacognitive knowledge, followed by metacognitive regulation, and then, metacognitive control and execution. Some directions in the issue of gender difference were also observed that overall, girls are significantly better than boys in metacognitive knowledge while boys in metacognitive regulation. However, they did not show any difference in metacognitive control and execution, the supposed higher order skill of metacognitive awareness. Keywords: metacognitive knowledge, regulation, control and execution Scholarly Research Journal's is licensed Based on a work at www.srjis.com
Introduction Most of the models of metacognition assume that students are active learner. They construct their own strategies and goals and actively regulate various elements of cognition, motivation and behavior towards their learning goals. This self-regulation is a metacognitive skill which mediates between the individual’s performance, contextual factors, and personal characteristics (Moss, 2007). According to different models, three components underlie the metacognitive behavior of students (Brown, 1987; Desoete&Ozsoy, 2009; Flavell, 1979; Fleming & Dolan, 2012). Those are metacognitive knowledge and experience, metacognitive regulation, and metacognitive execution. Metacognitive knowledge consists of the knowledge and beliefs about task, strategies and goals of learning. Metacognitive regulation involves the voluntary use of strategies for controlling cognitive process (Desoete&Ozsoy, 2009). Subsequently, an additional ‘‘monitoring’’ component was proposed, corresponding to the use of metacognitive knowledge and experiences to guide behavior (Nelson &Narens, 1990). This monitoring process is linked to self-regulation, proactive control, and metacognitive Copyright © 2017, Scholarly Research Journal for Interdisciplinary Studies