An Investigation into Metacognitive Awareness Level: a Comparative Study of Iranian and Lithuanian University Students

The presented article reports on an empirical and comparative study that aimed at investigating the overall level of metacognitive awareness of Iranian and Lithuanian university students, as well as its weakest and strongest sub-components and related metacognitive awareness inventory (MAI) items. To obtain a detailed measure of the levels of metacognitive awareness of the two groups, with a total sample size of 755, Schraw and Dennison’s (1994) MAI was used. Data comparisons show that Lithuanian university students have a medium level of metacognitive awareness, while a low level has been detected in Iranian students. Upon examining the subcomponents of the knowledge of cognition component, the mean score obtained for declarative knowledge was found to be highest in both groups. Although in the Iranian group the lowest mean score was related to conditional knowledge, in the Lithuanian group it was procedural knowledge. Considering the regulation of cognition component, the highest mean score was obtained in the planning subcomponent in the Iranian students and in the evaluation subcomponent in the Lithuanian students, while the lowest mean score was obtained in the monitoring subcomponent in the Iranian students and in the debugging subcomponent in the students. The results of this study may contribute to improving the quality of teaching and learning.

REFERENCES:

• Aljaberi, N.M. & Gheith, E. (2015). University students’ level of metacognitive thinking and their ability to solve problem. American International Journal of Contemporary Research, 5 (3), 121-134.
• Al-Hamouri, F. & Abu Mokh, A. (2011). Level of the need for cognition and metacognitive thinking among Yarmouk university undergraduate students. Najah University Journal for Research (Humanities), 25(6), 1463-1488.
• Alkan, F. & Erdem, E. (2014). The relationship between metacognitive awareness, teacher self-efficacy and chemistry competency perceptions. Procedia Social and Behavioral Sciences, 143, 778-783.
• Costabile, A., Cornoldi, C., Beni, R.D., Manfredi, P. & Figliuzzi, S. (2013). Metacognitive 159An Investigation into Metacognitive Awareness Level components of student’s difficulties in the first year of university. International Journal of Higher Education, 2 (4), 165-171.
• Doğan.Y. (2016). Relationships among foreign language anxiety, academic self-efficacy beliefs and metacognitive awareness: A structural equation modelling. International Journal of Learning and Development, 6 (2), 31-41.
• Efklides, A. (2009). The role of metacognitive experiences in the learning process. Psicothema, 21, 76-82.
• Flavell, J.H. (1976). Metacognitive aspects of problem solving. In L.B. Resnick (Ed.), The nature of intelligence (pp. 231-235). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
• Gok, T. (2010). The general assessment of problem solving processes in physics education. Eurasian Journal of Physics and Chemistry Education, 2(2), 110-122.
• Kállay, É. (2012). Learning strategies and metacognitive awareness as predictors of academic achievement in a sample of Romanian second-year students. Cognitie, Creier, Comportament, 16(3), 369.
• Kramarski, B. & Michalsky, T. (2009). Investigating preservice teachers’ professional growth in self-regulated learning environments. Journal of Educational Psychology, 101(1), 161-175.
• Metcalfe, J. & Finn, B. (2008). Evidence that judgments of learning are causally related to study choice. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 15, 174-179.
• Prytula, M.P. (2012). Teacher metacognition within the professional learning community. International Education Studies, 5(4), 112-121.
• Pucheu, P.M. (2008). An investigation of the relationships between the Scoring Rubrics Inventory and the Metacognitive Awareness Inventory as reported by secondary school core-subject teachers (Doctoral dissertation). Available from ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database. (UMI No. 3313868)
• Schraw, G. & Dennison, R.S. (1994). Assessing metacognitive awareness. Contemporary Educational Psychology, 19, 460-475.
• Schraw, G. & Moshman, D. (1995). Metacognitive theories. Educational Psychology Review, 7(4), 351-371.
• Schraw, G., Olafson, L., Weibel, M. & Sewing, D. (2012). Metacognitive knowledge and field-based science learning in an outdoor environmental education program. In A. Zohar & Y.J. Dori (Eds.), Metacognition in science education (pp. 57-77). Springer Netherlands.
• Sperling, R.A., Howard, B.C., Staley, R. & DuBois, N. (2004). Educational Research and Evaluation, 10(2), 117-139.
• Yesilyurt, E. (2013). An analysis of teacher candidate’s usage level of metacognitive learning strategies: sample of a university in Turkey. Educational Research and Reviews, 8(6), 218-225.
• Young, A. & Fry, J.D. (2008). Metacognitive Awareness and academic achievement in college students. Journal of the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning, 8(2), 1-10. 160 Marjan Masoodi Yunus, M., Suraya, A. & Wan Ali, W.Z. (2009).Motivation in the Learning of Mathematics. European Journal of Social Sciences, 7(4), 93-101.
• Zimmerman, B.J. & Schunk, D.H. (2011). Handbook of self-regulation of learning and performance. Taylor & Francis.
• Zohar, A. & Dori, Y.J. (2012). Introduction. In A. Zohar & Y.J. Dori (Eds.), Metacognition in science education: Trends in current research (pp. 1-19). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer.