History Of Metacognition

Metacognition

Metacognition is one of the emerging concepts in the field of education (De Clerq, 2010). It was first introduced by Flavell in 1976. In its shortest sense, metacognition is about “thinking about thinking”.Despite straightforward definition, metacognition is a complicated construct that has been the object of research for more than 30 years (Weimer, 2012). Flavellfirst introduced the term metacognition as “one’s knowledge concerning one’s own cognitive processes and products or anything related to them.” It includes “the active monitoring and consequent regulation and orchestration of these processes in relation to the cognitive objects or data on which they bear, usually in the service of some concrete goal or objective.”

Although the term has been part of the vocabulary of educational psychologists for the last couple of decades, and the concept for as long as humans have been able to reflect on their cognitive experiences, there is much debate over exactly what metacognition is. However, it was not Flavell who first studied metacognition. In the early twentieth century, researchers have documented the great importance of monitoring and regulating one‘s comprehension process. Memory monitoring and feeling of knowing has been studied during the 1960s. Information processing models from the 1970s included executive control system that regulates basic cognitive processes. Also, Vygotsky, (1896-1934) and Piaget (1896-1980) also added self-regulation and self-reflection in their cognitive development theory. Self-regulation and self-reflection are in fact metacognition. After the work of Flavell, many researches have been conducted and a lot of new findings came up. One of the recent definitions of metacognition is that it is the students’ awareness of themselves as learners (Weimer, 2012). Also, it refers to the meta-level knowledge and mental actions used to steer cognitive processes (Jacobse et al,

They are closely related and can often overlap. Schraw, Crippen, and Hartley (2010) elaborated upon the definition of metacognition: “Knowledge of cognition includes the awareness of what one knows, how one learns, what strategies one knows, and when one implements strategies. Regulation of cognition includes planning, monitoring, and evaluation. Planning involves one’s connection to previous knowledge, plan for using strategies, and use of time. Monitoring is one’s self-checking at each stage of the task. Evaluation includes the learner’s appraisal of the outcome and reflection on what new knowledge he or she gained”. [Delvecchio, F. (2011)]

Metacognition is a subdivision of cognition, or a type of cognition. It is defined as the scientific study of an individual's cognitions about his or her own cognitions. Basically, metacognition is the self-reflection of cognition. On the other hand, cognition refers to mental process that includes memory, attention, producing and understanding language, reasoning, learning, problem-solving and decision making. It is often referred to as information processing, applying knowledge, and changing preferences (Conyers et al, 2014).

Dimensions of