The purpose of this study was to design a local theory explaining the relationship between metacognitive language and networks as constructs of a local instructional theory in the context of a fourth-year intermediate phase mathematics education methodology module. The local instructional theory was designed to facilitate an adapted lesson study through a problem-based learning instructional philosophy. A problem-based learning task was then designed outlining the education needs and resources of a South African primary school, characteristic of schools in a rural area. In particular the task describes a fictitious teacher’s concern for teaching a Grade 6 mathematics class the concept of place value. Two groups of students, who volunteered to participate in this research, collaboratively designed and presented research lessons across two educational design-based research cycles for two rural schools in North West, as a form of service learning. In implementing the local instructional theory phases, participants were required to follow the lesson study approach by investigating, planning, developing, presenting, reflecting, refining and re-presenting the research lesson and its resources. These design sessions were videorecorded, transcribed and then coded in Atlas.ti through interpretivistic and hermeneutic analysis. The coded data were then imported into NodeXL to illustrate embedded networks. Not only social network data but also metacognitive network data were visualised in terms of metacognitive networks. The results show that across the local instructional theory phases, constructs of metacognition, metacognitive language and networking emerged on a social (stratum 1), interpersonal (stratum 2) and social-metacognitive (stratum 3) level. Collectively, these strata form the architecture of the theory of metacognitive locale that explains the relationship between the constructs. The findings suggest that when students express their metacognitive processes through a metacognitive language (e.g. I am thinking or feeling), their interpersonal metacognitive networks develop into shared metacognitive experiences which foster their metacognitive locale, a dimension of their metacognitive language and networking. / PhD (Mathematics Education), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

The purpose of this study was to design a local theory explaining the relationship between metacognitive language and networks as constructs of a local instructional theory in the context of a fourth-year intermediate phase mathematics education methodology module. The local instructional theory was designed to facilitate an adapted lesson study through a problem-based learning instructional philosophy. A problem-based learning task was then designed outlining the education needs and resources of a South African primary school, characteristic of schools in a rural area. In particular the task describes a fictitious teacher’s concern for teaching a Grade 6 mathematics class the concept of place value. Two groups of students, who volunteered to participate in this research, collaboratively designed and presented research lessons across two educational design-based research cycles for two rural schools in North West, as a form of service learning. In implementing the local instructional theory phases, participants were required to follow the lesson study approach by investigating, planning, developing, presenting, reflecting, refining and re-presenting the research lesson and its resources. These design sessions were videorecorded, transcribed and then coded in Atlas.ti through interpretivistic and hermeneutic analysis. The coded data were then imported into NodeXL to illustrate embedded networks. Not only social network data but also metacognitive network data were visualised in terms of metacognitive networks. The results show that across the local instructional theory phases, constructs of metacognition, metacognitive language and networking emerged on a social (stratum 1), interpersonal (stratum 2) and social-metacognitive (stratum 3) level. Collectively, these strata form the architecture of the theory of metacognitive locale that explains the relationship between the constructs. The findings suggest that when students express their metacognitive processes through a metacognitive language (e.g. I am thinking or feeling), their interpersonal metacognitive networks develop into shared metacognitive experiences which foster their metacognitive locale, a dimension of their metacognitive language and networking. / PhD (Mathematics Education), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

It is well established that patients with temporal lobe epilepsy (TLE) commonly report memory difficulties. The aim of this thesis was to use a novel approach adopting Nelson & Narens' (1990) theoretical framework to investigate whether metacognitive knowledge and memory performance were differentially disrupted in patients with TLE. More specifically, investigating to what extent poor memory in TLE could result from inadequate metamemory monitoring, inadequate metamemory control or both. Experiment I employed a combined Judgement-of-Learning and Feeling-of-Knowing task to investigate whether participants could monitor their memory successfully at both the item-by-item and global levels. The results revealed a dissociation between memory and metamemory in TLE patients. TLE patients presented with a clear episodic memory deficit compared with controls yet preserved metamemory abilities. Experiments 2 and 3 explored the sensitivity approach to examine metacognitive processes that operate during encoding in TLE patients and controls. Both these experiments demonstrated that TLE patients were sensitive to monitoring and control processes at encoding. The final experiment further investigated memory performance by examining the role of lateralisation of the seizure focus using material specific information and the 'Remember-Know' paradigm. The findings from the verbal task provided partial support to the material-specific hypothesis. The results from these experiments are discussed in terms of their association with executive functioning and memory deficits in TLE, and have important implications for future research examining memory and metamemory in TLE patients and other clinical populations.

Master of Science / Department of Psychological Sciences / Michael E. Young / Although risky decision-making tasks present some a priori risk (i.e., base-rate), decision makers often have an opportunity to modify this level of risk through their behaviors. Broadly speaking, risk can be modified by assigning additional resources to an ongoing task or by engaging in specific risk-mitigation strategies before or after the risky decision is made. The modification of risk requires ongoing awareness of task demands, resource constraints, and risk-mitigation strategies that can be used to adapt behavior over time. This thesis explores risk modification that occurs during difficult tasks. Difficult tasks hold greater risks because they fall at the edge of the decision maker’s abilities and are likely to require a greater number of resources to overcome. As resources are engaged they become unavailable for other tasks or strategies to cope with changing task demands. I studied how individuals monitor risks and develop risk mitigation strategies using a videogame task designed to mirror contingencies that would be encountered in the real world. Results from two experiments that involve this task suggest that decision-makers adequately monitor and develop active strategies for dealing with risks. These strategies change over time and vary as a function of task difficulty and experience.

The purpose of this study is to understand the influence of English learning experience and metacognitive language learning strategy training on students¡¦ language learning beliefs and achievement. The sample of this study is 42 third grade students in primary school. The experimental group received metacognitive language learning strategy training while the control group didn¡¦t. The training program lasted for thirteen weeks. The study adopted a pretest-posttest non-equivalent-control-group design. The t-test, analysis of variance and analysis of covariance were adopted to examine the differences between participants¡¦ achievement. The percentage and mean were to describe participants¡¦ beliefs. This study revealed six general findings. First, participants in this study have more realistic expectation and high motivation about learning English. Second, students with English learning experience have better motivation beliefs, higher involvement and greater achievement. They also tend to believe that every individual has English learning abilities. However, students without English learning experience changed their attitude toward learning at the end of this study. Third, the strategy training can improve participants¡¦ beliefs and proved to be useful with other learning materials, but only in difficult test the trained participants get better scores. Fourth, to most beliefs, learning experience has better influence and strategy training affects greater on students with learning experience. Fifth, there is no significant interaction between English learning experience and strategy training on achievement. Finally, metacognitive language learning strategy training can improve participants¡¦ reading abilities, but speaking skill is influenced by learning experience. The conclusion provides suggestions for future development.

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Over the past several decades, many K-12 classes have moved to use open, inquiry-based approaches to science instruction; research has shown some benefits from these approaches. However, there also exist significant challenges in teaching scientific modeling and inquiry, some based on their nature as metacognitive skills and others based on the general difficulty in providing guided instruction in open-ended exploratory learning contexts. To address these challenges, this dissertation presents a metacognitive tutoring system that teaches students an authentic process of inquiry-driven scientific modeling within an exploratory science learning environment. The design of the metacognitive tutoring system is informed by the literature on the process of scientific modeling and inquiry in both education and science, and it draws from AI theories of metacognition and intelligent tutoring. The tutoring system monitors the performance of teams of students in an open inquiry task in ecology. The system provides feedback on demand about how well the team is doing in investigating and explaining the system, and it also intervenes when errors in the process are observed or when new abilities are demonstrated. To evaluate this system, a controlled experiment was conducted with 237 students in a middle school life science classroom. In one condition, teams of students completed the activity without the tutoring system enabled, while in the other condition teams interacted with the tutoring system during part of their inquiry and modeling process. Evaluations of this experiment have shown that students who interact with the tutoring system improved in their attitudes toward scientific inquiry and careers in science, and that teams that interact with the tutoring system generate better explanations of ecological phenomena.

This work stems from the fact that objectively assessing student “mastery” of science concepts without truly understanding how they are making sense of these concepts, continues to be one of the most difficult tasks I face as an educator. A model eliciting activity (MEA) is an instructional tool that provides students and teachers with plenty of opportunities to express, test, and refine their thinking while simultaneously providing a document trail of thinking. Model eliciting activities allow teachers, students, and researchers to gain valuable information about how students construct, test, and revise models. Essentially, they are rich metacognitive tools that encourage students to express and refine their own thinking while simultaneously providing an opportunity for teachers and students themselves to gain insight on how their students are learning. However, two difficulties arise in the implementation of MEAs: (1) assessing the quality of the tasks involved in MEAs, and (2) assessing student knowledge demonstrated through MEAs (Wang et.al., 2009). This report reviews the literature on assessing MEAs and focuses on the development of a generalized assessment framework for model eliciting activities in a middle school science context. / text

Research into reading strategies and strategy instruction has indicated their effectiveness and beneficial effects on reading improvement. However, additional effort and support is needed in real-world teaching environments for students to benefit from these research findings. This report reviews research on the effectiveness of the use of L2 reading strategies and strategy instruction. Based on research conclusions, this paper discusses the patterns of strategy use adopted by both proficient and less proficient readers to shed light on what kinds of strategies should be taught and how. It argues that teachers have important roles to play in selecting strategies for instruction and teaching them; teachers need to consider such factors as proficiency levels, text type and task goals. This paper concludes with pedagogical implications, suggesting teachers play roles as coaches and scaffolders, and offering nine strategies for instruction. / text

The purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of undergraduates’ metacognitive beliefs about writing and knowledge, ways that those beliefs may change during the semester, and the relationship of beliefs to their persuasive writing. Scales assessing epistemological and writing beliefs were given to students in lower-division rhetoric and writing courses (N=241). Generally, students experienced significant changes in their beliefs about knowledge, learning, and writing across the semester, as assessed by the Epistemological Beliefs Questionnaire (Schommer, 1993) and writing beliefs scales (White & Bruning, 2002). Thus, students at the end of the semester reported beliefs that learning was a slow process and that knowledge was contingent. Although regressions predicting quality of students’ persuasive writing from the belief scales were not significant, qualitative analyses revealed interesting trends in papers from students with different epistemological stances and beliefs about writing, particularly with regard to their use of sources. / text