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.     

College Counseling Centers With Counselors in Private Practice: Guidelines to Negotiate Ethical Challenges

Several factors shape practices in counseling centers today, including an increased need for referral to external mental health services. Providing external referrals can lead to both practical and ethical implications when counseling center employees also operate private practices. Guidelines to negotiate the potential ethical dilemmas inherent in this scenario are provided.     

School systems and social equity in western and communist countries: A historical-comparative appraisal

In outlining the problem of this article the author discusses the conceptual relationship between ‘equality’ and ‘equity’ with regard to educational opportunity and to their controversial interpretation in Western and Soviet sources. After a historical retrospective the analysis is focused on the clarification of ‘equality of educational opportunity’, its implementation in school systems and its differentiating definition by James S. Coleman. The recent development characterised by a turn from exaggerated optimism to disillusion is explained by actual events and trends as well as by reference to sociological and genetic works, published in Western and Communist countries.The outline of some essential obstacles to the realisation of equality of educational opportunity paves the way for concluding remarks in which possible ways of overcoming these obstacles (confined to the Western scene) are proposed. They are rooted in the thesis that ‘equality’ and ‘equity’ are less easy to define as objectives than reduction in unjustifiable deficiencies. Stress is laid on the thesis that the concept of equality of educational opportunity through education is in danger of being reduced to a programme of minimal knowledge and the tyranny of meritocratic examination systems, not of humane and individual personalities, potential good citizens. Admitting, therefore, that ‘equity’ deserves to be given priority over ‘equality’ the author concludes by emphasising that efforts to foster equity must not supersede the inclusion of reduction in inequality in educational programmes.     

Die Bedeutung des pädagogisch-psychologischen Wissens für die Qualität der Klassenführung und den Lernzuwachs der Schüler/innen im Physikunterricht

In the present study it was investigated whether the pedagogical knowledge of teachers has an influence on the process quality of physics instruction and on the learning achievement of students as well. Pedagogical knowledge, conceptualized as knowledge about strategies in classroom instruction that is domain-general and relevant for teaching behaviors, was measured using a paper-and-pencil test with two scales: one scale on declarative knowledge, the other on conditional-procedural knowledge (Lenske et al. 2015). As a basic aspect of the process quality of classroom instruction, classroom management was assessed using video ratings of two lessons from each participating teacher. Students’ learning achievement was assessed using standardized domain-specific knowledge tests in a pretest-posttest design. The sample included 34 teachers from higher-track secondary schools and their students (N?=?993). A complex bootstrapping mediation model shows that teachers’ pedagogical knowledge, mediated by their classroom management, has a positive effect on their students’ learning achievement.     

R&D cooperation and innovation activities of firms—evidence for the German manufacturing industry

The aim of the paper is to investigate in a simultaneous equation framework the role of R&D cooperation in the innovation process—in context with other factors—from two specific aspects. First, analysis focuses on the impact of R&D cooperation on firms’ innovation input and output. Second, analysis is undertaken as to how the number of cooperation partners affects the innovation behaviour of firms. Starting with the discussion of theoretically expected effects of successful R&D cooperation on the innovation activities of firms, the importance of inter-organizational arrangements in R&D is empirically investigated in respect of firms in the German manufacturing industry. The estimation results can be summarized as follows: joint R&D is used to complement internal resources in the innovation process, enhancing the innovation input and output measured by the intensity of in-house R&D or the realization of product innovations. On the input side, the intensity of in-house R&D also stimulates the probability and the number of joint R&D activities with other firms and institutions significantly.     

不同患者群体容量反应性变量参数应用的强制性标准:重症监护病人窦性节律和控制呼吸流行情况的前瞻性研究（英文）

目的:通过对危重病人在入院后24小时内和整个重症监护过程中窦性心律和控制呼吸情况的调查,分析每搏量变异在评估危重病人容量反应的适用性,并探究每搏量变异度在败血症、肝硬化和胰腺炎病人中的适用性。创新点:通过探究窦性节律和控制呼吸情况评估每搏量变异度在重症监护病人临床上的适用性,弥补重症监护病人窦性节律和控制呼吸情况数据的空白。方法:在进行1241次热稀释法血流量测量前,对88位病人的窦性节律和控制呼吸情况进行调查。结论:每搏量变异度在主要的医疗重症监护病房中的适用性只约为25%~35%。两项强制性指标的流行性在重症监护病房的情况随时间的延长而降低。此外,每搏量变异度在胰腺炎和肝功能衰竭患者中的适用性尤其低。     

The impact of metamemory and domain-specific knowledge on memory performance

This paper consists of two major parts. First, research exploring possible interactions between metamemory and domain-specific knowledge in influencing children’s text recall and comprehension is briefly summarized. Overall, the findings indicate that metacognitive knowledge does make a difference even in cases where domain-specific knowledge is rich. Second, a recent experiment conducted in our lab and investigating the generalizability of this conclusion for sort-recall tasks is described in more detail. Third — and fourth-grade soccer experts and novices were first given a comprehensive metamemory questionnaire and then administered a sort-recall tasks using two different picture lists: whereas one list included items from various semantical categories (e.g., animals, clothes), the other list was composed of soccer pictures that could be classified in several categories such as players, kicks, or equipment. The results showed that although domain-specific knowledge had a strong impact on recall of the soccer list, general metacognitive knowledge made an independent contribution, particularly for the group of soccer experts. More specifically, good metamemory positively affected the recall of experts but had no impact on novices’ memory performance.     

The Bernoullis and the origin of probability theory: Looking back after 300 years

This paper describes the contribution of the four famous Bernoullis (Jacob, Johann, Daniel and Nicolaus) to the development of the theory of probability between 1670 and 1760. Their contributions are evaluated from a modern day position of probability theory and statistics. We argue that abstract formulation of problems and mathematical solution concepts for abstract problems and seemingly special questions have a long term impact on the diversification of science. In the appendix, reference is also given to the ongoing work of the Bernoulli Edition in Basel.