Education Commons^™

Rethinking Thinking About Thinking: Against A Pedagogical Imperative To Cultivate Metacognitive Skills, Lauren R. Alpert

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In summaries of “best practices” for pedagogy, one typically encounters enthusiastic advocacy for metacognition. Some researchers assert that the body of evidence supplied by decades of education studies indicates a clear pedagogical imperative: that if one wants their students to learn well, one must implement teaching practices that cultivate students’ metacognitive skills.

In this dissertation, I counter that education research does not impose such a mandate upon instructors. We lack sufficient and reliable evidence from studies that use the appropriate research design to validate the efficacy of metacognitive skill-building interventions (not just evaluate their relationship to learning outcomes). I argue …

The Effects Of Question Difficulty Order On Metacognitive Judgments During An Online Test, Wei-Chieh Fang

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Three experiments were conducted to examine the effects of question difficulty order on people’s judgments of test performance and test experiences. Building on the finding that ordering questions from easy to hard often leads to overconfidence (i.e., a retrospective bias), the study aimed to examine the generality and robustness of this effect by having participants from a diverse population take an online test and then make a post-test judgement of their performance. In addition to using the same ascending and descending order of difficulty as prior research, the study also explored how the U-shaped order (e.g., easy-hard-easy) and report option …

Fundamental Principles Of Metacognition: A Qualitative Study Of Metacognition, Pedagogy And Transformation, Philip Hulbig

Educational Studies Dissertations

This study investigated the transformative quality of a metacognitive education. It examined a transformative metacognitive education from both the subjective personal perspective of the student who has gone through the process of transformation and the more objective pedagogical perspective of the professors who work to bring forth such transformational experiences in their students. Through interview and analysis these perspectives were integrated to produce a pedagogical theoretical framework derived from experience and grounded in observations about metacognition across various scientific disciplines. The personal elements of metacognition that promote educational transformation from within the students were contrasted with the pedagogical approaches of …

Metacognitive Strategies Used For Reading Comprehension Among Adult Postsecondary Learners, Mary Lukes

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

AbstractA significant positive correlation between higher metacognitive strategy use and better reading comprehension among native English-speaking children and adult learners of English as an additional language, consistently presented in the literature, has not been consistently or directly found among native English-speaking adult high school graduates who enroll in postsecondary learning programs such as university programs. Consequences for adult learners with lower reading comprehension scores at college entry include significantly lower earnings over their lifespan due in part to greater risk for not completing a postsecondary program. This nonexperimental cross-sectional study was guided by two theoretical frameworks, one for adult reading …

The Effect Of Priming Metacognition And Critical Thinking On Dispelling Psychological Misconceptions, Marissa Renee Bamberger

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This thesis examined to what extent the supraliminal, semantic priming of undergraduate introductory psychology students’ metacognitive and critical thinking skills predicts their ability to dispel common psychological myths and misconceptions. This thesis also investigated to what extent undergraduate introductory psychology students’ personality traits predict their ability to dispel common psychological myths and misconceptions. Fitting standard and hierarchical regression models, this study found that, although gender, age, year in school, and college-generation status were not significant covariates, persons of color typically exemplified greater endorsement of psychological misconceptions than their White / Caucasian peers. Also, compassion (an aspect of the agreeableness trait …

Emotion And Metacognitive Monitoring: The Role Of Emotion In The Development Of Learning Beliefs, Robert Craig Hoy

Individual, Family, and Community Education ETDs

Educators have daily experience with how students' emotional states influence their behaviors and levels of motivation. What is more poorly understood and even counterintuitive in effect is the subtler role of emotion in the role of metacognitive monitoring in the form of learning belief development. The research driving current understanding in this area is limited and fragmented across disciplines. The purpose of the current quantitative, cross-sectional study was to contribute to our understanding of the role that emotion plays in metacognitive monitoring. The study used self-report measures given before and after a video-based learning task. Metrics included measures of emotional …

Exploring Metacognition, Multitasking And Test Performance In A Lecture Context, Fatma Arslantas

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Multitasking has become more prevalent with recent advancements in technology (Judd, 2014; Junco & Cotten, 2012). Many self-report studies, and the few available experimental manipulations, consistently indicate that media multitasking is related to decrements in learning. The present study extends the current literature by explicitly documenting students’ responses to media-based interruptions to learning. The current study also documents other behaviours students engage in that may or may not be related to multitasking when technology is available during lectures. In addition, the study explores the role of metacognition as a contributor to learning in a media-rich educational setting. In total, 118 …

Learning From Science Lectures : Students Remember More And Make Better Inferences When They Complete Skeletal Outlines Compared To Other Guided Notes., David Bradley Bellinger

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

It is common for students to take notes during lectures, but the accuracy and completeness of these notes is highly questionable. Therefore, instructors must make an important decision – should they provide their students with lecture notes? If so, how complete should the notes be and in what format? The present experiments examined how note format and degree of support impacted the encoding benefit of note-taking. In Experiment 1, undergraduate students listened to brief audio-recorded science lectures (Human blood, N = 42; Human ear, N = 36) and completed skeletal outlines (requiring students to conceptually organize the information using the …

Enhancing Psychology Majors’ Meta-Cognitive Understanding Of Desirable Workplace Skills Using A Short Discussion-Based In-Class Activity, Alena S. Gordienko

Masters Theses, 2010-2019

The skills psychology students possess that employers look for in job applicants include: reliability, integrity, work ethic, communication, technology, critical thinking, teamwork, and professionalism (Rodgers, 2012). I conducted a study to determine whether participating in a brief classroom activity would improve students’ ability to effectively describe their skills. Students were asked to write a cover letter before and after the activity. The activity included a discussion of four skills and student reflection on their experiences that demonstrated these skills. I hypothesized that overall letter-writing would improve, that students’ self-reported levels of preparedness to find a job would improve, that students …

Self-Regulated Learning (Srl) Microanalysis For Mathematical Problem Solving: A Comparison Of A Srl Event Measure, Questionnaires, And A Teacher Rating Scale, Gregory Lee Callan

Theses and Dissertations

The current dissertation examined the validity of a context-specific assessment tool, called Self-regulated learning (SRL) microanalysis, for measuring self-regulated learning (SRL) during mathematical problem solving. SRL microanalysis is a structured interview that entails assessing respondents' regulatory processes as they engage with a task of interest.

Participants for this dissertation consisted of 83 eighth grade students attending a large urban school district in Midwestern USA. Students were administered the SRL microanalytic interview while completing a set of mathematical word problems to provide a measure of their real-time thoughts and regulatory behaviors. The SRL microanalytic interview targeted the SRL processes of goal-setting, …

Learn 2 Learn: A Metacognitive Intervention For Middle School, Melva J. Lopez

Senior Theses and Projects

Self-regulated learning is comprised of motivation, cognition, and metacognition. This study aimed to improve eighth grade social studies students’ self-regulated learning and academic performance through the implementation of an intervention into their social studies curriculum. The intervention centered on exposing students to the different dimensions of metacognition (i.e., comprehending and being able to control one’s own cognitive processes) based on research findings that showed a link between metacognition and academic performance (Dignath & Büttner, 2008; Kistner, Rakoczy, Otto, Dignath-van Ewijk, Büttner, & Klieme, 2010). The intervention was designed to foster the students’ knowledge and use of metacognitive strategies through group …

Self-Regulated Learning Intervention: Teaching Metacognition To Enhance School Performance And Motivation Of Middle School Students, Taylor K. Godfrey

Senior Theses and Projects

Self-regulated learning is comprised of motivation, cognition, and metacognition. This study aimed to improve eighth grade social studies students’ self-regulated learning and academic performance through the implementation of an intervention in the social studies curriculum. The intervention centered on exposing students to the different dimensions of metacognition (i.e., comprehending and being able to control one’s own cognitive processes) based on research findings that showed a link between metacognition and academic performance (Dignath & Büttner, 2008; Kistner et al., 2010). The intervention was designed to foster the students’ knowledge and use of metacognitive strategies through group work and cognitive discussions based …

A Comparison Of Bias In Four Measures Of Monitoring Accuracy, Fred Kuch

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Typically in calibration research, subjects perform a task and make a judgment about the success of the task. Accurate findings help subjects improve self-calibration. In addition, researchers rely on the accuracy of findings to make inferences about underlying metacognitive processes. Consequently, it is important that the measures used to assess monitoring accuracy are as free of bias as possible. Bias indicates whether an observed value of monitoring accuracy over- or underestimates the true value.

This study examined gamma and three other viable statistics, d', C, and the G Index, currently used to measure monitoring accuracy. Using Monte Carlo simulation techniques, …

The Acquisition Of Cultural Competence: A Phenomenological Inquiry Highlighting The Processes, Challenges And Triumphs Of Counselor Education Students, Douglas L. Garner

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Although research has effectively isolated and identified the key characteristics of a culturally competent counselor, there are few studies regarding the acquisition of these characteristics. To close the gap between theory and practice, studies are needed researching the emergence and, acquisition of these characteristics. This study explores how Masters-level Counselor Education students narrate the encounters, challenges, triumphs and epiphanies associated with their preliminary attempts to practice in a culturally competent manner. This phenomenological inquiry seeks to shed light students attitudes, beliefs and dispositions; defines the processes related to the acquisition of cognitive awareness and learning, skills and abilities; and illuminates …