Improving self-monitoring and self-regulation: From cognitive psychology to the classroom

Although there is abundant experimental metamemory research on the relation between students’ monitoring, regulation of learning, and learning outcomes, relatively little of this work has influenced educational research and practice. Metamemory research, traditionally based on experimental paradigms from cognitive psychology, can potentially contribute to designing and improving educational interventions that foster self-monitoring and self-regulation in children, adolescents, and young adult learners. We describe the metamemory paradigm, and provide a short overview of the insights it has generated with regard to improving metacognitive skills in these groups of learners. Moreover, we summarize the contributions to this special issue on translating insights from cognitive psychology research on metamemory to educational research and practice, and describe possible themes and directions for future research that could further bridge the gap between fundamental and more applied research on metacognition, so as to design effective educational interventions.     

The Development of Metacognitive Knowledge in Children and Adolescents: Major Trends and Implications for Education

ABSTRACT— This article gives an overview of developmental trends in research on metacognition in children and adolescents. Whereas a first wave of studies focused on the assessment of declarative and procedural metacognitive knowledge in schoolchildren and adolescents, a second wave focused on very young children's "theory of mind" (ToM). Findings from a recent longitudinal study are presented that demonstrate developmental links between early ToM and subsequent declarative metacognitive knowledge, mainly mediated by language competencies. The relevant literature further indicates that developmental trends in declarative and procedural metacognitive knowledge clearly differ. Whereas the findings for declarative metacognitive knowledge show steady improvement through childhood and adolescence, mainly due to increases in knowledge about strategies, the results are not similarly clear-cut for procedural metacognition. Age trends observed for this component of metacognition are significant for self-control activities but not pronounced for monitoring abilities. These findings have important implications for education, emphasizing the role of strategy training procedures in different instructional domains and illustrating teachers' potential impact on the improvement of monitoring and control processes.     

Analyzing the temporal evolution of students’ behaviors in open-ended learning environments

Metacognition and self-regulation are important for developing effective learning in the classroom and beyond, but novice learners often lack effective metacognitive and self-regulatory skills. However, researchers have demonstrated that metacognitive processes can be developed through practice and appropriate scaffolding. Betty’s Brain, an open-ended computer-based learning environment, helps students practice their cognitive skills and develop related metacognitive strategies as they learn science topics. In this paper, we analyze students’ activity sequences in a study that compared different categories of adaptive scaffolding in Betty’s Brain. The analysis techniques for measuring students’ cognitive and metacognitive processes extend our previous work on using sequence mining methods to discover students’ frequently-used behavior patterns by (i) developing a systematic approach for interpreting derived behavior patterns using a cognitive/metacognitive task model and (ii) analyzing the evolution of students’ frequent behavior patterns over time. Our results show that it is possible to identify students’ learning behaviors and analyze their evolution as they work in the Betty’s Brain environment. Further, the results illustrate that changes in student behavior were generally consistent with the scaffolding provided, suggesting that these metacognitive strategies can be taught to middle school students in computer-based learning environments.     

Interactions between children’s metacognitive abilities, working memory capacity, strategies and performance during problem-solving

This paper reports two related studies intended to explore the interactions between children’s metacognitive abilities, their working memory capacity, the development and selection of strategies and their performance on problem-solving tasks. In the first study, a sample of 20 children aged 5 and 6 were presented with a reclassification task. In the second study, a sample of 72 children aged 6, 8 and 10 were presented with a multidimensional discrimination learning (MDL) task. Data was collected related to the children’s metacognitive abilities, working memory capacity, response strategies and task performance. The results indicated that performance on both tasks was dependent upon developmentally changing interactions between these various aspects of cognitive functioning. In particular, the relationship of working memory capacity to performance was dependent upon metacognitive abilities. The results also suggested that metacognitive awareness did not directly affect performance, but that such a relationship was dependent upon the development of strategic control. The implications of these results for understanding U-shaped behavioural growth and other common developmental patterns are discussed. Within the educational sphere, the study emphasises the significance and possibility for children as learners of fostering certain kinds of metacognitive ability.     

Fostering learners’ metacognitive skills of keyword reformulation in image seeking by location-based hierarchical navigation

It is critical that students learn how to retrieve useful information in hypermedia environments, a task that is often especially difficult when it comes to image retrieval, as little text feedback is given that allows them to reformulate keywords they need to use. This situation may make students feel disorientated while attempting image searching. This study thus designed an image navigation tool, location-based hierarchical navigation support (LHINS), which can dynamically construct a compact WordNet-based hierarchy augmented by location. Using this tool, learners can assimilate new information based on their existing knowledge structure, thus avoiding cognitive overload so as to scaffold their metacognitive skills. Sixty-four high school students were invited to take part in an experiment to test the efficacy of the proposed tool compared to a normal keyword-based search (NKBS) system. The experiment evaluated not only the students’ task completion time in the NKBS and LHINS groups, but also their keyword reformulation process, in order to determine the differences in their metacognitive skills. The results revealed that the LHINS group tended to complete the tasks faster and develop better metacognitive skills related to keyword reformulation as compared to the NKBS group. This finding suggests that an image search engine, enhanced by a compact hierarchical navigation tool, can help learners develop better search strategies. When examining how learners with different cognitive styles used the tool, the results showed that learner performance depends on cognitive style, as well as the image retrieval system used, and thus a more detailed investigation of the interaction between the tool and cognitive styles was conducted. Based on these results, several suggestions are derived for designing a more powerful image navigation tool.     

混合学习环境下学习者的在线自我调节学习潜在剖面分析及行为过程挖掘

混合学习强调线下课堂教学和线上自主学习的混合以实现优势互补,其中学习者的在线自我调节学习能力显得异常重要。文章旨在揭示学习者的在线自我调节学习能力存在哪些潜在类别,不同类别学习者是否具有不同的在线自我调节学习行为过程模型,以及这对于在线自我调节学习环境的设计有何启示。研究首先对239名学习者的在线自我调节学习能力进行测评,然后使用潜在剖面分析方法对测评数据进行分析,发现样本学习者可以分为高、中、低三种不同水平的自我调节学习剖面类别。然后分别对三种类别学习者的在线自我调节学习行为数据进行过程挖掘,研究发现:(1)学习者的自我调节学习能力更多体现在执行阶段的行为上;(2)中高水平自我调节学习者的在线学习行为表现出更强的认知和元认知策略;(3)高水平自我调节学习者体现出更有效的时间管理策略与更强的整体规划能力。因此,在线自我调节学习环境需要引入自适应支持机制,为学习者提供适应性的过程和策略支持。     

“How do I remember when I got my dog?” The structure and development of children’s metamemory

Kreutzer et al.’s (Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development 40(1):1–60, 1975) metamemory interview has been widely used in children’s metamemory literature, yet the psychometric properties of the measure have yet to be reported, and the format and language of some subtests may pose problems for young children. Researchers often combine subtests with other tests purported to measure metamemory, yet there is little empirical data regarding how these subtests relate. It has been proposed that metamemory is comprised of distinct procedural and declarative components, but this has not been empirically tested in young children. Therefore, the two studies reported here aimed to adapt Kreutzer et al.’s interview to increase its developmental appropriateness, to examine the relationship between the interview subtests, to add subtests that purport to test procedural metamemory, and then to examine the factor structure of the resulting scores and investigate how metamemory changes with age across the elementary school years. The results suggest that the adapted versions of the subtests are generally less contaminated by language ability, especially for the younger children. Factor analysis indicated the presence of two declarative metamemory factors and one procedural metamemory factor. Both declarative factors followed a similar developmental trajectory, increasing steadily from early to late elementary school age, whereas procedural metamemory increased significantly between Grades 1 and 3 only.     

Executive Function Skills,Early Mathematics,and Vocabulary in Head Start Preschool Children

Research Findings: The contribution of 3 executive function skills (shifting, inhibitory control, and working memory) and their relation to early mathematical skills was investigated with preschoolers attending 6 Head Start centers. Ninety-two children ranging in age from 3 years, 1 month, to 4 years, 11 months, who were native English or Spanish speakers were assessed for these executive function skills as well as their receptive vocabulary skills and early mathematical abilities using the Child Math Assessment (Starkey, Klein, & Wakeley, 2004), which captures an array of skills across 4 domains. Hierarchal regression analyses revealed that inhibitory control and working memory made unique contributions to children’s early mathematical abilities in the domains of numeracy, arithmetic, spatial/geometric reasoning, and patterning/logical relations after we controlled for age, receptive vocabulary, and previous Head Start experience. Furthermore, receptive vocabulary also accounted for significant variance in children’s early mathematical abilities above and beyond executive function skills. No group differences emerged between English-only and dual language learners on the fit of the regression models. Practice or Policy: These findings extend previous research highlighting the interface of executive function skills and mathematical learning in early childhood with further evidence to support this relationship beyond early numeracy and counting using a broad measure of critical early math skills. In addition, the intricate role of language in the development of early mathematical competence is considered. Implications of these findings for scaffolding executive function skills and vocabulary within prekindergarten math curricula are discussed, with particular consideration for children from low socioeconomic backgrounds.     

The cognitive profile of adult dyslexics and its relation to their reading abilities

The question of which cognitive impairments are primarily associated with dyslexia has been a source of continuous debate. This study examined the cognitive profile of Hebrew-speaking compensated adult dyslexics and investigated whether their cognitive abilities accounted for a unique variance in their reading performance. Sixty-nine young adults with and without dyslexia were administered a battery of tests measuring their reading skills and a number of cognitive abilities. The dyslexics were found to exhibit a generally poor cognitive profile, including their attention, visual working memory, naming, visual perception and speed of processing abilities, with the exception of high executive functions skills. Furthermore, naming speed, visual working memory and attention were significantly associated with decoding and fluency measures and predicted group difference after controlling for phonological skills. The findings point to the contribution of cognitive factors to decoding rate and possibly to the ability of utilizing rapid orthographic processes, thus effecting dyslexics’ reading performance.     

Precursors of metamemory in young children: the role of theory of mind and metacognitive vocabulary

This paper describes findings of a longitudinal study that was carried out to examine relationships among different aspects of young children's cognitive development, namely, theory of mind, metacognitive vocabulary, and metamemory, which seem theoretically connected but so far have not been studied simultaneously. In total, 174 children were included in the present analyses who were about 4;6 years of age at the first measurement point. Children were tested at four time points, separated by a testing interval of approximately half a year. At the first time of testing, children completed a set of theory of mind tasks. At each of the following measurement points, measures of metacognitive vocabulary and general vocabulary as well as metamemory were given. Overall, the findings show that theory of mind performance assessed at the age of 4;6 predicts metacognitive knowledge assessed about one and a half years later. Furthermore, they point to a reciprocal relationship between metacognitive vocabulary and metamemory in that comprehension of metacognitive vocabulary predicted later metamemory and, conversely, metamemory significantly predicted later comprehension of metacognitive verbs. This research was supported by a grant from the German Research Foundation (SCHN 315 /20–7) to the German Research Group on Cognitive Development.     

Double-coding: a key to knowledge utilization and generation in the instruction and learning of skills

Double-coding refers to the simultaneous holding in declarative and procedural memory stores of information concerning the performance of a skill. Skill acquisition typically terminates in a stage of automatization during which declarative coding of skill-relevant information is lost or becomes irretrievable. It is argued that maintenance of both declarative and procedural knowledge relevant to skills and their performance permits unique metacognitive capabilities. It is argued further that these metacognitive capabilities are basic to constructive generation and utilization of such skill-relevant knowledge. Speculation is entertained concerning instructional means of helping learners to maintain double-coding of skill-relevant information, thus maximizing the constructive, metacognitive capabilities presumed to issue from such double-coding.     

英语词汇能力及学习策略相关性实证研究

为了构建二语学习者词汇能力发展的模式,该研究调查了高中低不同水平的第二语言学习者在词汇能力上的差异和词汇策略使用频度的不同,并指出了在每个发展阶段比较有效的学习策略。通过实地调查和SPSS数据分析,得出如下结论:词汇广度的发展优于词汇深度的发展;词汇接受性能力的发展由于词汇产出性能力的发展。在整个发展过程中,认知策略起了不可估量的作用。此外,记忆策略、补偿策略和元认知策略在不同的发展阶段也起了一定的作用。     

语法学习探新

以现代认知心理学学习理论为依据,分析了英语语法学习的性质、条件与过程,阐明了英语语法学习的有效途径。从语法学习的过程看,陈述性知识侧重语言理解;程序性知识强调语言运用,两者是一个相互联系、相互作用的有机整体。作者认为,语法学习的实质就是学习者主动获取陈述性知识和程序性知识的学习结果,是他们将陈述性知识有效地转化为程序性知识的过程,是他们通过运用语言做事、逐渐提高英语运用能力的过程。     

当代认知心理学的"学习观"及教学启示

认知心理学是当代心理学发展的主流，对教育产生了巨大的影响。认知心理学学习观主要有：学习是个体主动构建的过程，学习者已有的知识经验是学习的充分条件，对信息的认知加工和相应的策略是学习的必要条件，元认知对认知过程的意识和调控影响学习的顺利进行，动机指导着个体的学习。据此，现代教学实践应改变传统的学生观，教学过程中要加强学生的研究、学生学习策略和元认知能力的培养，教学评价也应注意学生学习过程的评价。     

It's Never Too Late: Developing Cognitive Skills for Lifelong Learning

An argument is presented suggesting that lifelong learning will, indeed, depend on the development of cognitive skills, but that such skills can be elusive and cannot in general be picked up in specialized courses or workshops. The (not original) thesis, rather, is that any and all faculties that would qualify as cognitive skills depend fundamentally on language facility. This position is supported by literature references followed by further suggestions on a course of action for the development of language facility through close reading of challenging texts. Essential to the argument is the fundamental difference between ‘information’ and ‘knowledge’. It is further suggested that both procedural and declarative knowledge need to be developed if lifelong learning is to be enabled. The message here is hopeful because neurophysiological studies demonstrate that brain development continues throughout life. Such cognitive development cannot, however, be made quick and easy.     

迁移的四因素理论:一种解释技能之间迁移机制的整合模型

关于技能之间迁移机制 ,目前占主导地位的观点是西格勒和安德森的“共同要素理论”。这一理论认为 ,两种技能之间发生迁移的条件 ,是它们之间必须共有相同的过程性知识。这一观点忽视了陈述性知识在迁移中的作用 ,受到一些研究者的批评。单独考虑过程性知识或陈述性知识 ,都不能有效地解释技能之间的迁移。两种技能之间是否存在迁移 ,受到过程性知识之间的关系、对陈述性知识的精细加工、对过程性知识的精细加工、被试认知能力 (先前知识、认知水平、元认知水平等 )四个因素的综合影响     

What is your prediction? Teaching the metacognitive skill of prediction to a class of sixth- and seventh-grade students who are deaf

The development of the metacognitive skill of prediction in deaf students in a middle school social studies classroom was explored in an action research study (Riel, 2006). After observation of this group of learners and assessment of current skills, a unit was developed that integrated the teaching of prediction into their study of the American Revolution. It was found that these students were already using some metacognitive skills in their social studies class, but through direct instruction they were able to make more and better predictions related to the content being studied. The study demonstrates how the social studies curriculum provided an opportunity for students to learn and implement metacognitive skills that helped them to understand the cause-and-effect relationships in history and eventually to become more active readers during a reading task.     

同伴互评对学习者知识建构过程的实证研究——基于时间序列的认知网络分析

同伴互评能够促进学习者高阶认知能力的发展。文章采用认知网络分析法,以课程进程中四次作业的同伴互评评语为分析对象,从时间序列视角探索同伴互评对学习者知识建构的过程影响与差异影响,剖析出在高校课程教育中"以评促学"的作用机理。研究发现:同伴互评能有效提高学习者深层次的知识建构,帮助学习者在更高阶认知结构上进行知识构建;在同伴互评策略支持下,高、低元认知自我调节能力水平学习者与整体学习者的知识建构过程趋同,即都经历了从浅层学习到深度学习的发展过程;但是,对于高水平元认知自我调节能力组学习者而言,同伴互评在提升学习者认知结构的综合性和深层次的建构方面,有更加明显的作用。     

Exposing the Challenges and Coping Strategies of Field-Ecology Graduate Students

In this paper, we expose the unique challenges confronting graduate field-ecology students and the coping strategies they adopt to overcome such challenges. To do so, we used a qualitative (in vivo) research method that combines interviews, observations and open questionnaires with a group of five Israeli graduate students. The two major challenges that the students faced were the uncontrolled nature of field research (or complexity), and the nature of field setting, which isolated the students from authoritative guidance. In response to these challenges, the students developed a set of research skills which were expressed in this study by a series of three (metacognitive) strategies which we designated as ‘protocol-dominated’, ‘intermediate’ or ‘field-dominated’. In order to develop such research skills, our subjects rely upon declarative and procedural knowledge. In contrast to declarative knowledge, learned in coursework, procedural knowledge is learned and activated via the situated experience of implementing research in authentic field environments. We also found that fieldwork complexity imposes itself the minute the students step into the field; potentially, this can negatively impact students' motivation. However, as the students accumulate field experience and acquire the knowledge and skills needed to overcome the field's complexity, their motivation improves. Recognizing the unique learning components connected to field research will help novice students better cope with fieldwork challenges, as well as help their advisers in guiding them. This work also has implications for designing inquiry curricula in field sciences for university and high-school students.