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Metacognition

Describe the two main components of metacognition.

Summary Key Concepts Case Studies: Re

ﬂect and Evaluate

Applications: Learning Strategies

Reading Comprehension

Writing Skills

Note Taking

Study Time

What Is Metacognition and Why Is It Important?

Special Cases of Metacognition

Theory of Mind in Childhood

Egocentrism in Adolescence

Outline Learning Goals

Explain four characteristics of children

’s theory of mind.

Explain two consequences related to adolescent egocentrism.

Factors Affecting the Development and Use of Metacognition

Explain the factors that in

ﬂuence the development and use of metacognitive skills.

Describe how teachers can assist students with reading comprehension and writing skills.

Explain the importance of note taking and study time and how teachers can help students improve these

learning strategies.

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WHAT IS METACOGNITION AND WHY IS IT
IMPORTANT?

As you begin to read this module, you might have a pencil, pen, or
highlighter in hand, ready to begin identifying important concepts and
examples. Did you look over the outline on the preceding page? How
many of the six learning goals can you recall? Do you plan to
memorize the key concepts? These questions are prompting you to
engage in metacognition—thinking about your own thinking
processes, including study skills, memory capabilities, and the ability
to monitor your learning (Hertzog & Robinson, 2005; Metcalfe,
2000).

Metacognition is important for both teaching and learning. The

more students know about what learning strategies are and how,
when, and where to apply different learning strategies effectively, the
more likely they are to use such strategies and thereby increase their
academic achievement (Perkins, 1995; Peterson, 1988). Rather than
expect students to spontaneously acquire metacognition on their own,
teachers need to explicitly teach students metacognitive skills along
with content instruction. Teaching students about their metacognition
and how to use it requires an understanding of its two main
components: metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive regulation.

Metacognitive knowledge is knowledge about our own cognitive

processes and an understanding of how to regulate those processes to
maximize learning. Metacognitive knowledge falls into three
categories (Flavell, Miller, & Miller, 2002; Manning, 1991):
1. Person knowledge, also called declarative knowledge, refers to understanding our own capabilities:

“I am good at memorizing lists” or “I am poor at comprehending
what I read in textbooks.” This type of knowledge changes
considerably from kindergarten through high school. Older
school-age children become much more accurate in determining
how much information they can learn within a speciﬁc time frame
(Flavell et al., 2002).

2. Task knowledge, or procedural knowledge, relates to how we
perceive the difﬁculty (or ease) of a task. In school, students may
make this judgment based on the task’s:

content (“This is a review of irregular verbs in Spanish”),

length (“This chapter is very long”), and/or

type of assignment (“Essay exams require recall of

information rather than recognition, as in multiple-choice
exams”).

Very young children understand that fewer items will be easier to
learn than more items and that learning a list of similar concepts
(three colors) is easier than learning concepts with little connection
to one another (Flavell et al., 2002). Older children also

understand that the difﬁculty level of a task will inﬂuence the
study strategies they use (e.g., studying to summarize information
versus studying to repeat the information verbatim) (Schunk,
2004).
3. Strategy knowledge, or conditional knowledge, describes our
capability for using strategies to learn information. In general,
young children are not good at using strategy knowledge (Flavell
et al., 2002). Three-year-olds can be taught a learning strategy for
a speciﬁc task but will not spontaneously apply that strategy in a
similar learning task (Hertzog & Robinson, 2005; Palincsar, 2003).
By age eight, children will use strategies on their own without
prompting (Beal & Fleisig, 1987; Ritter, 1978). In the upper
elementary grades, students start to develop a better understanding
of which cognitive strategies are effective in which situations, and
they begin to apply them with increasing consistency (Flavell et
al., 2002).

In general, young children, especially those in early childhood
education programs, are less likely to accurately estimate memory
abilities (person knowledge), judge task difﬁculty (task knowledge),
or apply appropriate strategies in new contexts (strategy knowledge).

Metacognitive regulation is the purposeful act of attempting to

control our own cognitions, beliefs, emotions, and values. It allows us
to use our metacognitive knowledge to function efﬁciently in learning
situations. Metacognitive regulation requires using executive control
functions, a collection of mental processes that include planning,
monitoring, and evaluating strategies (Brown, 1987; Flavell et al.,
2002).

1. Planning involves scheduling learning strategies and selecting
which strategies to use in different contexts.

2. Monitoring involves periodically checking on how well the
planned strategy is working. For example, we can monitor our
performance through self-testing.

Metacognition

Module 12 :

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3. Evaluating involves appraising the outcomes of the cognitive
strategies used. More than just “getting a good grade,” this process
measures to what degree our performance is affected by our
planning and monitoring of selected learning strategies.

Children in early childhood are less likely to plan the use of memory
strategies. They also are less accurate at monitoring their learning
progress, being more likely to insist that they understand or have

learned material that in fact is not yet well learned (Chi, 1987).
Monitoring skills increase with age, with seven- to ten-year-olds
becoming much more accurate in their monitoring than younger
children. Young children also are not good at evaluating the
effectiveness of learning strategies and memory skills (Hertzog &
Robinson, 2005). Children need explicit feedback about the outcomes
of strategy use in order to increase experience and hence
metacognitive regulation. Even adults, however, are poor judges of
their comprehension in some tasks, such as reading comprehension
(Schunk, 2004).

Where did you learn metacognitive knowledge and regulation?
Did your teachers provide information to help you develop
metacognitive skills?

SPECIAL CASES OF METACOGNITION

Theory of Mind in Childhood

As early as age 2, children begin to recognize that others have their
own minds. This recognition helps them understand why others’
perceptions and feelings differ from their own. This early
understanding of the mind and the “mental world” is called theory of
mind (Flavell et al., 2002). Studies on theory of mind have deﬁned
four characteristics:

1. False-beliefs: the understanding that a belief is only one of many
mental representations, which can be false or accurate. 3-year-olds
are not capable of understanding that someone could have a
false-belief. Rather, they perceive only one belief—the correct one.
However, by age 4 or 5, most children understand that people can
believe one thing but be wrong (Flavell et al., 2002). The candy box
experiment described in Box 12.1 provides an example of
false-beliefs.

2. Appearance-reality distinctions: a person’s ability to understand
that something may look one way (appearance) but actually be
something else (reality), such as a well-designed plastic spider
(reality) that appears to be alive (appearance). One experiment
presented preschool-age children with a fake egg (appearance). Once
the children learned that the “egg” was actually a painted rock
(reality), they insisted that it looked like a rock, not an egg (Flavell,
Flavell, & Green, 1983). Similar experiments have been conducted
with numerous stimuli, such as sponges (reality) that look like

Candy Box Experiment

BOX 12.1

Trial one, with 5-year-old:

A developmental psychologist shows a

ﬁve-year-old a candy box and

asks her,

―What is in it?‖ ―Candy,‖ she says. She then looks inside the

box and to her surprise discovers that it actually contains pencils, not
candy.

―What would another child who had not yet opened the box think
was in it?

‖ the experimenter asks. ―Candy!‖ says the child, amused

at the trick.

Trial two, with 3-year-old:

The experimenter then tries the same procedure with a 3-year-old.

―What is in the box?‖

―Candy,‖ she says. She then looks inside and is also surprised to discover the pencils.
When asked

―What would another child who had not yet opened the

box think was in it?

‖ the child responds, ―Pencils.‖ The child also insists

that she had originally thought the box held pencils.

Conclusion:
The 3-year-old does not understand that other people or they themselves can have a false
belief.

Source: Flavell et al., 2002.

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rocks (appearance). The ﬁndings suggest that children are not
capable of understanding that appearances can be deceiving or
false until they reach age 4 or 5.
3. Visual perspective-taking: understanding that views of
physical objects differ based on one’s perspective. Researchers
have been able to establish the development of perspective-taking
in pre-school as occurring on two levels (Flavell et al., 2002):

Level one (2 to 3 years of age): Children understand that

another person can see something if the person’s eyes are open
and looking in the appropriate direction without any visual
obstructions. At this level, perspective-taking involves
determining whether something is seen (e.g., “Mom can see the
game board”).

Level two (4 to 5 years of age): Children understand that

another person can see something in a different way or from a
different view than they see it. Here perspective-taking involves
determining how something is seen (e.g., “Mom’s view of the
game board is upside down because she is sitting across from
me at the table”).

4. Introspection: children’s awareness and understanding of their own thoughts (Flavell, Green, &

Flavell, 1995, 2000; Flavell, 2000, 2004). By age 5, children are
likely to both overestimate and underestimate the amount of
thinking they and others are capable of. For example, 5-year-olds
believe that people know when they are sleeping (overestimate)
yet believe that a person can go days without thinking
(underestimate). Even when they do understand that thoughts are
occurring within the mind, 5-year-olds are not clear about what is
being thought about within their own mind or that of another
person. For example, children who are asked to think about where

in their house their toothbrush is kept will deny having been
thinking about their bathroom (Flavell et al., 1995). By age 8,
children are better able to describe their own stream of thoughts
and understand that it is very hard, if not impossible, to stop
thinking for any length of time (Flavell et al., 2000).

Hence, the theory of mind becomes increasingly sophisticated over the preschool and school-age years.

Egocentrism in Adolescence

As the awareness of thoughts within one’s own and others’ minds
develops, early adolescents become increasingly self-conscious,
having a heightened sense of the self and a concern for how and what
others think of them. Egocentrism in young children involves
difﬁculty differentiating between their view of an object and
another’s view of an object, while adolescent egocentrism is
difﬁculty differentiating between one’s own thoughts and the
thoughts of others. Elkind (1967) proposed two speciﬁc consequences
of adolescent egocentrism:

1. Imaginary audience: The adolescent imagines or
believes that he or she is the focus of attention in social
settings due to a lack of differentiation between self and
others’ thoughts. For example, an adolescent boy may
believe that others’ thoughts are focused on him, just as
his own thoughts are

(e.g., “I can’t stop thinking about the zit on
my chin, and everyone else is looking at it
too!”). Imaginary audience can manifest
itself in two ways:

Metacognition

Module 12 :

Visual Perspective-taking. Children understand that another person may
see the same object from a different view, such as a game board that faces
the child and not his or her opponent.

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An adolescent girl might be highly critical of herself and expect

others to judge her negatively as well. Let’s say she tries a new
hairstyle and is very concerned that it does not look well on her.
When no one in her group of friends comments on the hairstyle, she
might ask, “What do you think of my new haircut?” and be
unconvinced by the answer “We didn’t even notice.”

An adolescent boy might be self-admiring and assume that

others also will ﬁnd his qualities endearing and positive. Perhaps he
believes that his joking, sarcastic style of classroom behavior is a
ﬂattering and attractive quality. He will have difﬁculty

understanding why his parents and teachers do not approve of this
behavior.
2. Personal fable: Adolescents mistakenly believe that they
are unique, such that no one else can understand their situation. For
example, most adolescents do not believe that their teachers can
understand the difﬁculty they might have in studying or receiving
good grades. They might believe that their friends do not experience
the same pressure to do well or have the same feelings of
disappointment (e.g., “None of my friends have this much trouble in
math class”).

Two separate explanations for the rise of the imaginary audience

and the personal fable during adolescence have been offered. The
ﬁrst, based on Piaget’s theory of cognitive development, suggests that
imaginary audience and personal fable are negative consequences that
arise as the individual moves into formal operational thinking (Elkind,
1967). The development of formal operational thinking not only
enables adolescents to use metacognition, but also leads them to think
too much about themselves and about what others think of them. The
second explanation proposes that imaginary audience and personal
fable are not negative side effects but rather adaptive coping
processes that arise because of the changing relationship between
adolescents and their parents (Lapsley, 1993). In the course of
adolescence, as the child becomes an adult, the relationship between
child and parent must be renegotiated to balance separateness and
connectedness (Gavazzi & Sabatelli, 1990; Sabatelli & Mazor, 1985).
Imaginary audience helps adolescents maintain their connectedness
with others, whereas personal fable helps them maintain their
separateness and uniqueness. The use of imaginary audience and
personal fable may continue as coping mechanisms throughout
adulthood, though used less often and intensely than during
adolescence (Frankenberger, 2000; Lapsley, 1993; Quadrel,
Fischhoff, & Davis, 1993).

Think of a time when you thought no one could possibly understand your
situation or emotions.

FACTORS AFFECTING
THE DEVELOPMENT
AND USE OF
METACOGNITION

A number of factors inﬂuence the development of metacognition,
including biological differences and environmental differences
(Flavell et al., 2002). Neurological impairments can impede the
development of metacognition. For example, children with autism are
considered to have neurological deﬁcits in their ability to understand
the mind and thoughts of people (Flavell et al., 2002), and children
with intellectual disabilities have difﬁculty with processes such as
planning, monitoring, and

Imaginary Audience. An adolescent may believe or imagine that other people
are watching or thinking about the adolescent.

Intellectual disabilities: See page 427.

Piaget

’s theory of cognitive development, see page 119.

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Metacognition

Module 12 :

Motivation and cognitive factors: See page 279.

evaluating strategies for task performance (Campione, Brown, &
Ferrara, 1982). In addition, frontal brain damage can impair
metacognitive abilities (Shimamura, 1994).

Our environment—in particular, our family experiences—also

plays a role in the development of metacognition. Children learn
about metacognition by listening to parents’ and siblings’
conversations about beliefs, emotions, knowledge, how to learn, and
how to study. Family conversations may be more inﬂuential for girls
than for boys because parents tend to express their thoughts and
emotions more with daughters than with sons (Flavell et al., 2002).

Students also possess individual characteristics that determine

whether they choose to use the metacognitive skills they have
developed:

Belief about the nature of the task (task knowledge): Students

who believe that the information to be learned is easy will not use
more advanced skills and strategies such as planning, monitoring,
and evaluating (Schunk, 2004). Also, when the task involves
memorization rather than connections between important ideas or
elaboration of ideas, students are more likely to use lower-level
strategies (e.g., rote memorization) or to alter their strategies to
reﬂect the type of exam or task identiﬁed by the teacher (Van
Meter, Yokoi, & Pressley, 1994).

Motivation: Students who are highly motivated to learn are

more likely to invest time and energy in metacognitive strategies
than are students who are less interested in learning (Schunk,
2004).

Prior knowledge about the topic: The more students know about

a topic, the better they are able to understand, organize, and retain
new information (Engle, Nations, & Cantor, 1990; KuhuraKojima
& Hatano, 1991). Students who are aware of what they know and
do not know are better able to use planning strategies to increase
their study time for information not well understood (Brown,
Bransford, Ferrara, & Campione, 1983).

Prior success using metacognitive skills: Successful use of

metacognitive skills will lead to increased use of those skills.
Students who do not understand how metacognitive strategies
improve their learning are less likely to use those strategies in the
future (Schunk, 2004).

Think of some speci

ﬁc ways teachers can help students

understand the importance of metacognitive skills and
encourage them to use these skills.

APPLICATIONS: LEARNING STRATEGIES

Students typically equate learning or study strategies with basic

memory skills (see Table 12.1) that help them remember information.
Several other learning strategies are related to metacognition, notably
reading comprehension, writing skills, note taking, and study time.
Reading and writing are introduced early in educational settings,
whereas note taking and studying typically are not required until later
elementary school or middle school. Let’s examine each of these
learning strategies more closely.

Reading Comprehension

Learning strategies include extracting information from reading
materials, or reading comprehension. Reading comprehension
increases with age, partly due to increases in metacognitive skills
(Palincsar, 2003; Peverly, Brobst, & Morris, 2002) and to repeated
exposure across multiple tasks and domains (Schunk, 2004). Two
popular instructional techniques are used to increase reading
comprehension: reciprocal teaching, commonly used with younger
children, and the PQ4R strategy, typically used with older students.

Reciprocal teaching is a structured conversation in which teachers

and students discuss sections of a text (Palincsar & Brown, 1984), as
depicted in Box 12.2. Reciprocal teaching involves four steps:

1. Summarizing: Students must verbally summarize the text,
which requires them to attend to the main points and check or
monitor their understanding.

2. Questioning: Students must create questions based on the text, a
form of monitoring their understanding.
3. Clarifying: Students are asked to clarify difﬁcult points in
order to critically evaluate their understanding of the material.

4. Predicting: Students are asked to make predictions about future
content in order to test their inferences between main points.

The brain and its development: See page 102.

Prior knowledge: See page 187 and page 230.

Memory:

See page 187.

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TA B L E 1 2 .1

An Overview

of Memorization Strategies

Memory

strategy Description

Rehearseal strategies
Maintenance rehearsal Simply repeating the information over and over.

Elaborative rehearsal Connecting new information to prior

knowledge. Chunking Grouping individual pieces of information in

a meaningful way. Mnemonic devices

Acronym Forming a word from the

ﬁrst letter of each word to be

remembered or forming a phrase or sentence from the

ﬁrst letter

of each item in a list to be remembered.
Chain mnemonic Connecting the

ﬁrst item to be memorized to the

second, the second to the third, and so on, or incorporating items
to be remembered into a catchy jingle.
Keyword method Associating new words and concepts with
similar-sounding cue words and images.
Method of loci Imagining a familiar place, picking out particular
locations, and using those locations as pegs on which to hang
items to be remembered from a list.

As with many learning strategies, teachers ﬁrst need to model good

reading comprehension skills using this strategy. Then students begin
to use the strategy with the support of teachers, who provide cues,
prompts, and feedback (Palincsar, 2003). The use of reciprocal
teaching results in substantially improved reading comprehension
among various age groups, from elementary students to adults
(Rosenshine & Meister, 1994), as well as among elementary and
middle school students with learning disabilities (Gajria, Jitendra,
Sood, & Sacks, 2007; Lederer, 2000). The strategy is also effective
when used in peer interaction or cooperative learning instruction
(Palincsar, Brown, & Martin, 1987).

A historical but still popular system for teaching older students

reading comprehension skills involves a series of steps known as
PQ4R (Robinson, 1961; Thomas & Robinson, 1972). These steps are:

1. Preview: Consistent with the executive control process of
planning, the ﬁrst step in reading comprehension is to survey or

preview the material to be read. Students read chapter outlines, scan
the chapter for general topics, and identify major sections within the
reading assignment.

2. Question: Developing questions based on the outline or section
headings allows students the opportunity to plan or identify the
important information that will be obtained from the reading
assignment. For example, the heading “Theory of Mind” might be
rephrased as the question “What is theory of mind?”
  3. Read: While reading the assigned chapter, article, or book,
students attempt to answer the questions developed from the outline
or the section headings.
  4. Reﬂect: The process of monitoring one’s reading comprehension
includes taking breaks from the reading material to relate
information to prior knowledge and create examples beyond those
provided in the text. Reﬂection includes asking questions such as
these: “Did I grasp the main points?” “Do I understand the content?”
“How does this relate to other information in the text?” “Can I think
of an example?”
  5. Recite: Reciting or rehearsing the information in the text is an
attempt to store the information in long-term memory. One strategy
is to answer the questions developed from the outline or section
headings (step 2) without looking back at the text material.
  6. Review: Although it might be thought that review implies
rereading, it actually requires the student to mentally, rather than
physically, think through the chapter contents in order to monitor
how much of the material has been learned.

Empirical studies have consistently found that the use of reading

comprehension strategies such as reciprocal teaching and PQ4R
improves students’ recall and understanding of important ideas

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BOX 12.2

Metacognition

Module 12 :

Reciprocal Dialogue Example

Text: In the United States salt is produced by three basic
methods: solar (sun) evaporation, mining, and arti

ﬁcial heat

evaporation. For salt to be extracted by solar evaporation, the
weather must be hot and dry. Thus, solar salt is harvested in
the tropic-like areas along our southern ocean coasts and at
Great Salt Lake.

Chris: Name three different basic methods how salt is produced.
Angela: Evaporation, mining, evaporation . . . arti

ﬁcial heat evaporation.

Chris: Correct, very good. My summary on this paragraph is about ways that
salt is being produced. Teacher: Very good. Could you select the next
teacher?

(Chris selects another student to read)
Text: The second oldest form of salt production is mining.
Unlike early methods that made the work extremely dangerous
and dif

ﬁcult, today’s methods use special machinery, and salt

mining is easier and safer. The old expression

―back to the salt

mine

‖ no longer applies.

Logan: Name two words that often describe mining salt in the old days.
Ken: Back to the salt mines?
Logan: No, Ken. Angela?
Angela: Dangerous and dif

ﬁcult.

Logan: Correct. This paragraph is all about comparing the old mining of salt
and today

’s mining of salt. Teacher: Beautiful!

Logan: I have a prediction to make.
Teacher: Good.

Logan: I think it might tell when salt was

ﬁrst discovered, well,

it might tell what salt is made of and how it

’s made.

Teacher: O.K. Can we have another teacher?

Text: Table salt is made by the third method

—artiﬁcial

evaporation. Pumping water into an underground salt bed
dissolves the salt to make a brine that is brought to the
surface. After puri

ﬁcation at high temperatures, the salt is

ready for our tables.

Ken: After puri

ﬁcation at high temperatures the salt is ready for what?

Chris: Our tables.
Ken: That is correct. To summarize: After its puri

ﬁcation, the salt is put on our tables.

Teacher: That was a

ﬁne job, Ken, and I appreciate all that

work, but I think there might be something else to add to our
summary. There is more important information that I think we
need to include. This paragraph is mostly about what?

Angela: The third method of arti

ﬁcial evaporation.

Brian: It mainly tells about pumping water from an
underground salt bed that dissolves the salt to make a brine
that is brought to the surface.
Teacher: Angela hit it right on the money. This paragraph is
mostly about the method of arti

ﬁcial evaporation and then

everything else in the paragraph is telling us about that
process. O. K. Next teacher.
Text: For thousands of years people have known
salt

—tasting it, using it for their lives’ needs. Sometimes it has

been treasured as gold; other times it has been superstitiously

tossed over the shoulder to ward off bad luck. Somehow
people and salt have always been together, but never is the tie
more complete than when the best people are called

―the salt

of the earth.

‖

Chris: My question is, what are the best people called?
Logan: The salt of the earth.
Chris: Why?
Logan: Because salt and the people have been together so long. (continued)

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BOX 12.2

Teacher: Chris, do you have something to add to that? O.K.
It really isn

’t because they have been together so long; it has

to do with something else. Brian?

Brian: (reading)

―People and salt have always been together but never has

the tie been so complete.

‖ Teacher: Alright, but when we use the

expression,

―That person is the salt of the earth,‖ we know that means that

person is a good person. How do we know that?
Brian: Because we treasure salt, like gold.

Source: Palincsar & Brown, 1984.

Reciprocal Dialogue Example (continued)

presented in the text (Anderson, 1990; Palincsar, 2003). This also
applies to children with learning disabilities (Schewel & Waddell,
1986).

Writing Skills

Writing skills increasingly require metacognitive skills such as
planning, monitoring, and evaluation (Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987).
However, even kindergarten children are capable of answering

questions about their planning strategies or their ability to put
thoughts onto paper. When interviewed about their writing skills,
kindergarten children typically use words such as “thought,”
“remembered,” and “idea.” They also are increasingly able to answer
questions about where or how they formulated ideas for their writing
assignments (Jacobs, 2004). Revision becomes an important part of
the writing process in middle school and high school as students
become better able to engage in monitoring and evaluation of their
writing and develop an increasing ability to think abstractly
(Berninger, Mizokawa, & Bragg, 1991).

Intervention strategies suggest that direct instruction and modeling

of metacognitive skills can improve writing skills (Hooper, Wakely,
de Kruif, & Swartz, 2006). Teachers can:

provide instruction in and modeling of planning strategies such as (1)

determining the audience,

(2) identifying the main ideas, (3) outlining the organization, and (4)
making rough drafts and revising. Procedural facilitations, shown in
Table 12.2, are a set of prompts used during planning and revision
(Bereiter & Scardamalia, 1987; Scardamalia & Bereiter, 1985).
Elementary students using procedural facilitations spend more time
planning and improve the quality of their writing (Scardamalia,
Bereiter, & Steinbach, 1984). Similarly, middle school students who
plan their writing by developing rough drafts perform at levels
comparable to those of some college students (Brown, Day, & Jones,
1983).

provide assistance in monitoring and evaluating progress. With

younger children, this might include asking them to think aloud or
answer questions about their ideas as they engage in writing
assignments (Jacobs, 2004). For older children and adolescents,
teachers might ask students to reread (aloud or silently) and
substantially revise, not simply edit, their papers.

Note Taking

As students continue to develop metacognitive skills, note taking
becomes necessary in many middle school and high school classes.
Learning the best practices of note taking is important because the
amount of information and the techniques used during note taking are
related to level of academic achievement.

Functions of note taking: Before we examine best practices for

note taking, we need to understand the three functions of taking notes
(Kiewra, 1985; Kiewra et al., 1991).

1. Encoding: The process provides assistance in the encoding of
material because writing down ideas from lecture material is a
second form of encoding that goes beyond simply listening to the
lecture. Some research supports the encoding function, suggesting
that taking notes, even without time for review, leads to superior
academic performance over not taking notes (Kiewra, 1985; Peverly,
Brobost, Graham, & Shaw, 2003).

Encoding and storage of information: See page 187.

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Sample Procedural Facilitations: Planning Cues for Opinion Essays

TA B L E 1 2 . 2

Metacognition

Module 12 :

New Idea An even better idea is . . .
An important point I haven

’t considered yet is . . . A better argument would be . . .

A different aspect would be . . .
A whole new way to think of this topic is . . .
No one will have thought of . . .
Elaborate An example of this . . .
This is true, but it

’s not sufﬁcient, so . . .

My own feelings about this are . . .
I

’ll change this a little by . . .

The reason I think so . . .
Another reason that

’s good . . .

I could develop this idea by adding . . .
Another way to put it would be . . .
A good point on the other side of the argument is . . .
Improve I

’m not being very clear about what I just said so . . . I could make my main point clearer . . .

A criticism I should deal with in my paper is . . .
I really think this isn

’t necessary because . . .

’m getting off the topic so . . .

This isn

’t very convincing because . . .

But many readers won

’t agree that . . .

To liven this up I

’ll . . .

Goals A goal I think I could write to . . . My purpose . . .

Putting It Together If I want to start off with my strongest idea I

’ll . . . I can tie this together by . . .

My main point is . . .

Source: Adapted from Scardamalia, Bereiter, & Steinbach, 1984.

2. Encoding plus storage: While taking notes may serve an encoding function, reviewing notes provides the

additional beneﬁt of returning to the lecture material for review and storage of the information in memory.
Empirical studies consistently ﬁnd that students who take notes and review their notes have higher achievement
than students who do not review notes (Kiewra, 1985; Kiewra et al., 1991).

3. External storage: External storage—or the review of notes borrowed from another student—can still beneﬁt the

storage of information. While less beneﬁcial than encoding or encoding plus storage for tasks of recall, external
storage may actually have more beneﬁt than merely encoding (listening to lectures) for tasks that ask students to
integrate or synthesize ideas (Kiewra et al., 1991).

Amount of information recorded: One important aspect of note taking is the amount of information included in

students’ notes. Increased amounts of noted lecture material are related to higher achievement. For example,
information that is recorded in notes has about a 50% chance of being recalled on an examination, whereas nonnoted
information has only a 15% chance of being recalled (Aiken, Thomas, & Shennum, 1975). However, most students
record only about 30% of the important information (Kiewra, 2002). Students may not record important information
because they lack the metacognitive knowledge to determine what is and is not relevant.

Teachers can increase the amount of important information that is identiﬁed and recorded by students in a

number of ways (see Kiewra, 2002, for a complete review):

Teachers can provide lecture notes, which offer a model for identifying important concepts. However, many

teachers, particularly those in secondary education and beyond, believe that students should be responsible for
their own note taking. Providing detailed notes to students does not encourage them to develop and improve their
note-taking skills.

Teachers can provide skeletal notes that contain the main points plus space for students to add detail. Skeletal

notes provided by teachers and completed by students include over 50% of the important information, compared
to only 30% of important information contained in notes taken without assistance.

Teachers can provide lecture cues to signal important ideas, such as writing concepts on the board, verbally

repeating information, pausing after stating the information, or explicitly identifying the

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224

cluster four

cognitive processes

Figure 12.1: Outline Notes.

Source: K. A. Kiewra (2002). How classroom teachers can help students learn and teach them how to learn. Theory into Practice, 41, 71

–80.

Wildcats

I. Tiger

III. Cheetah

A. Call

1. Roar

B. Weight

1. 450 pounds

C. Life span

1. 25 years

D. Habitat

1. Jungle

E. Social behavior

1. Solitary

II. Lion

A. Call

1. Purr

B. Weight

1. 125 pounds

C. Life span

1. 8 years

D. Habitat

1. Plains

E. Social behavior

1. Groups

IV. Bobcat

A. Call

1. Purr

B. Weight

1. 30 pounds

C. Life span

1. 6 years

D. Habitat

1. Forest

E. Social behavior

1. Solitary

1. Roar

B. Weight

1. 400 pounds

C. Life span

1. 25 years

D. Habitat

1. Plains

E. Social behavior

1. Groups y p

organization (e.g., “There are three categories”). Organization cues increase the percentage of important
information recorded to close to 65%, while approximately 80% of the information presented on the board is
recorded in students’ notes.

Teachers can allow—and even encourage—students to audiotape or videotape lectures as an opportunity to hear

the lecture a second time and add to their existing notes. Audio- or videotapes should not be used as a substitute
for note taking during the lecture, except when students are unable to take notes—such as in cases of physical or
learning disabilities. Students who hear or view a lecture can recall 30% of the important information, while
students who hear or view it twice recall more than 50%.

Teachers can allow students the opportunity to compare notes with other students in order to make corrections or

add details they missed. Reconstructing notes with a partner increases the amount of important information
recorded to 50%.

Note-taking techniques: Several studies have compared the use of conventional outline notes to use of matrix

notes (compare Figures 12.1 and 12.2, which give a sample of each technique). Matrix notes consistently have
resulted in greater learning (Kiewra, 2002; Risch & Kiewra, 1990). The advantage of matrix notes may be due to
their completeness: Students’ matrix notes typically include 47% of the lecture ideas, compared to only 32% of
lecture ideas contained in conventional outline notes. In addition, matrix notes allow connections and comparisons
to be made between key concepts and ideas, possibly resulting in improved integration and synthesis of the
information presented in lectures (Kiewra et al., 1991). Teachers can assist students in creating matrix notes in a
number of ways:

Completed matrix notes can be prepared by the teacher and provided to students.

The matrix framework can be prepared by the teacher and provided to students for them to complete.

Teachers can train students to construct matrix notes through direct instruction, modeling, feedback, and practice.

Study Time

Students can read the class material, complete writing assignments, and take notes, but quizzes and tests also require
studying. The developmental level at which studying begins varies considerably. Early elementary students typically
are quizzed in spelling and math. In later elementary grades, social studies tests may be added and spelling tests may
become vocabulary tests, with students needing to study deﬁnitions as well as spelling. At the middle school level,
science tests are included and social studies tests are common. However, great variability exists among schools,
classrooms, and teach-

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metacognition

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ers regarding the introduction and difﬁculty level of study skills
required.

More advanced metacognitive abilities include study-time

allocation, or the amount of time devoted to studying as well as
whether studying will take place over a long period of time or be
crammed into a few hours. Speciﬁcally, study-time allocation

has been closely linked to procedural knowledge or judgments about
the difﬁculty of learning (JOLs). For example, one student might
believe that the list of vocabulary words for this week’s English quiz
is easy, whereas another student judges the list to be very difﬁcult to
learn. According to the discrepancy reduction model individuals with
advanced metacognitive skills will determine the difﬁculty level of
items to be studied and allocate more study time to more difﬁcult
items (Dunlosky & Hertzog, 1998). However, the extra time spent on
difﬁcult items is not consistently related to better performance on tests
or evaluations (Metcalfe, 2002).

In an alternative view of study-time allocation, a student should

focus on material that is not easy or extremely difﬁcult but just out of
grasp, an area Vygotsky termed the Zone of Proximal Development. A
model based on Vygotskian theory, the region of proximal learning,
suggests that individuals will study items close to being learned but
not yet mastered (Metcalfe, 2002). Study-time allocation gradually
shifts toward more difﬁcult items, as reﬂected in changes in the
individual’s region of proximal learning. Experimental studies have
conﬁrmed that allocating study time based on one’s own region of
proximal learning, rather than on the most difﬁcult items (as the
discrepancy reduction model proposes), results in better performance
(Kornell & Metcalfe, 2006; Metcalfe & Kornell, 2005).

In order for the region of proximal learning to be effective,

students must engage in metacognitive regulation, particularly in
planning and monitoring skills.

Planning: Students must be able to make accurate judgments

about what they know and do not know and must plan or prioritize
the information to be learned. Teachers can assist students in
planning study time by asking them to make a list of items to be
learned from easiest to most difﬁcult.

Monitoring: Students must be able to monitor their learning by

continually making judgments about what has and has not been
learned during their study time. However, even college students
are not good at monitoring their level of preparedness for exams
(Peverly et al., 2003). Teachers can assist middle school and high
school students in monitoring their progress during study time by
teaching them the metacognitive skill of self-interrogation, or
asking themselves questions to help them gauge whether newly
learned material has been mastered. Students can learn to turn
headings in their textbook chapters into questions for self-testing.
Teachers also can provide sample questions, give quizzes, or ask
students to write practice exam questions (Kiewra, 2002).
Instruction for the speciﬁc learning and study strategies just

discussed should follow these general guidelines (Bruning, Schraw,
& Ronning, 1995):

Explain the value of the learning strategy. Many students do not

use strategies because they do not understand how strategy use
improves learning and performance.

Introduce only a few learning strategies at one time to decrease the probability of cognitive overload.

Model strategy use for students.

Provide ample opportunity for students to practice learning strategies.

Provide feedback to students about their use of learning strategies and improvement in their use.

Encourage reﬂection on strategy effectiveness.

Note opportunities for the transfer of learning strategies to other classes or domains.

How will you promote the use of learning strategies in the grade level you expect to teach?

Figure 12.1: Matrix Notes.

Source: K. A. Kiewra (2002). How classroom teachers can help students learn and
teach them how to learn. Theory into Practice, 41, 71

–80.

Metacognition

Module 12 :

Wildcats

Tiger Lion Cheetah Bobcat Roar Roar Purr Purr Weight

450 400 125 30 Life span 25 25 8 6 Habitat Jungle Plains Plains Forest
Social behavior Solitary Solitary
Groups Groups

Call

Zone of Proximal Development: See page 124.

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Transfer:

See page 230.

226

summary

Summary

Describe the two main components of metacognition. Metacognitive knowledge, the

ﬁrst

component of metacognition, refers to knowledge about our own cognitive processes. It is divided into
person (declarative), task (procedural), and strategy (conditional) knowledge. Metacognitive
regulation is the purposeful act of controlling our own thinking, emotions, and values and includes the
functions of planning, monitoring, and evaluation. Both metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive
regulation develop over time and are related to higher academic achievement.
Explain four characteristics of children

’s theory of mind. Theory of mind, which describes a

child

’s early understanding of the mental world, involves four characteristics that begin in

preschool and become increasingly sophisticated throughout the school-age years: (1) false-beliefs, an
understanding that beliefs can be accurate or inaccurate; (2) appearance-reality distinctions, the
understanding that objects may look one way but actually be something different; (3) visual
perspective-taking, an ability to understand that another person may visually see something differently
than you; and (4) introspection, an awareness of thoughts within one

’s own and others’ minds.

Explain two consequences related to adolescent egocentrism. Egocentrism in adolescence includes
(1) imaginary audience, the belief that others

’ thoughts are focused on the individual, and (2) personal

fable, or the belief that the individual is so unique that no one else can understand his or her emotions or
thoughts. Egocentrism in adolescence begins in an attempt to renegotiate parent-child relationships so
they become more adult-adult by balancing separateness and connectedness. The balance of
separateness and connectedness continues into adulthood, as does the use of imaginary audience and
personal fable, albeit less intensely.
Explain the factors that in

ﬂuence the development and use of metacognitive skills.

Metacognitive development is in

ﬂuenced by several factors. Biological factors such as neurological

ﬁcits and brain damage

and familial factors such as conversations between children and their parents and siblings about
thinking, learning, and knowledge in

ﬂuence the development of metacognition. Once metacognitive skills

begin to develop, individual factors will determine whether those skills are used in learning situations.
These factors include the nature of the task and the individual

’s level of motivation, prior knowledge, and

prior success with metacognitive skills.
Describe how teachers can assist students with reading comprehension and writing skills.
Teachers can improve students

’ reading comprehension by using reciprocal teaching with younger

students and the PQ4R strategy with older students. Both of these strategies require the use of
metacognitive skills such as planning, monitoring, and evaluation and improve students

’ recall and

understanding of important ideas. Teachers can improve students

’ writing skills by encouraging

planning techniques such as making rough drafts. They can also assist students in increasing their
monitoring skills by asking younger children to think aloud or answer questions about their ideas and by
asking older students to reread their initial drafts and make revisions.
Explain the importance of note taking and study time and how teachers can help students
improve these learning strategies. Note taking and study time are both related to higher achievement.
Although greater amounts of note taking are related to higher achievement, most students do not record
the bulk of important information. Teachers can improve the amount of information students record by
teaching them speci

ﬁc note-taking strategies such as using matrix notes. Study time should be based on

an individual

’s region of proximal learning, which requires being able to make accurate

judgments about prior knowledge and to-be-learned knowledge. Teachers can assist students in planning
and monitoring their study time by asking them to list items to be learned from easiest to most dif

ﬁcult,

teaching them self-interrogation skills, and providing them with sample questions.

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case studies: re

ﬂect and evaluate

227

region of proximal learning self-interrogation strategy knowledge study-time allocation task knowledge theory of mind

visual perspective-taking

Key Concepts

adolescent egocentrism appearance-reality distinctions evaluating false-beliefs imaginary audience introspection

metacognition metacognitive knowledge

metacognitive regulation monitoring personal fable person knowledge planning PQ4R reciprocal teaching

Case Studies:

Refl ect and Evaluate

Early Childhood:

“Air”

These questions refer to the case study on page 206.
1. What strategies did Barb use to aid students

’ reading comprehension?

2. What characteristic of theory of mind is illustrated by Maria and Jose? What does this tell you about

Jose

’s theory of mind?

3. The nature of the task can in

ﬂuence the way students use metacognitive strategies. How do you think students

viewed the nature of the science experiment task Barb presented them with? How did this view impact their
metacognitive strategy use?

4. How did Barb incorporate planning and monitoring into her students

’ kite project? Why are those skills important?

5. How could Barb

’s students use the strategy of evaluation on Kindergarten Kite Day to assess how well their

aerodynamic ideas work?

Elementary School:

“Reading About Pirates”

These questions refer to the case study on page 208.
1. Assume that some students who were completing seat work protested that the reading group had an easier

assignment. Explain what type(s) of metacognitive knowledge might lead some students to this conclusion.

2. What metacognitive strategies did Ian use with his reading group? Be speci

ﬁc.

3. What speci

ﬁc metacognitive strategies could Ian have taught his students to use in order to improve their reading

comprehension?
4. How could Ian have used reciprocal teaching with the students who were not in his reading group?
5. How might Ian have helped the students working at their desks to monitor their progress?

6. How could writing skills have been incorporated into the lesson for the students working at their desks? For the

students in the reading group?

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case studies: re

ﬂect and evaluate

Middle School:

“King Washington”

These questions refer to the case study on page 210.

1. What metacognitive factors may have contributed to the students

’

failure to remember details from the lessons when it came time to
take their exam?
2. What is adolescent egocentrism, and how might it have
contributed to the students

’ failure to take notes?

3. How might prior knowledge about George Washington have been
a factor in students

’ use of meta-cognitive skills during this unit?

  4. Why was it important for Tom to take time to teach different
note-taking strategies rather than just telling his students to be sure
to take notes?
  5. What advice could Tom have given his students to help them
make the best use of their study time before the exam?
  6. How could students have used planning and monitoring
strategies as they wrote down their talking points for the Continental
Congress?

High School:

“I Don’t Understand”

These questions refer to the case study on page 212.

1. What types of metacognitive knowledge are evident in So Yoon

’s

ﬂection on her teaching? What types of metacognitive knowledge

are evident in the students

’ responses and actions during the

lesson?
2. How might students

’ understanding of the repeating decimals

task have in

ﬂuenced their use of metacognitive strategies during the

math lesson?
  3. In what way does So Yoon display characteristics of having a
personal fable? Is it realistic to think that a teacher would have a
personal fable?
  4. Could students have used their notes from previous class
sessions to help them better understand the materials? Explain.
  5. How could students have used self-monitoring and evaluation
during the lesson? How could So Yoon have helped students use
monitoring and evaluation during the lesson?

6. How did So Yoon use self-monitoring as a metacognitive strategy during her
delivery of the lesson?