The purpose of this study was to observe college students’ behavior on five selftailored, multiple choice exams throughout a semester in relation to: a) metacognitive ability, b) self-efficacy expectations, and c) test anxiety. Additionally, the effect of a selftailoring procedure on exam scores and content validity of the tests was observed. Selftailored testing was defined as an option in which students selected up to five questions they wanted to omit from being scored on an exam. Students’ metacognitive ability was defined as the percentage of incorrectly answered questions out of the total number omitted. Ninety-nine college students from two sections of an educational psychology undergraduate course participated in this study. Eighty students completed the study; seventy-one used an option to omit questions on all exams. Before taking exam 1, students answered measures of self-efficacy and test anxiety. After completing each of the five course exams, students marked on the back of their answer sheet up to five questions they wanted to be omitted from scoring. After exam 5, students answered a questionnaire that addressed their perception of the self-tailoring procedure. MANOVA, repeated measures ANOVA, Pearson correlations, t-test and one-way ANOVA were conducted. Students made a statistically significant increase in their scores on all exams by using the questions omitting procedure. There was a statistically significant linear increase of percentages of incorrectly answered questions out of the total number omitted across five exams. Frequency of items that students omitted from scoring were significantly negatively correlated with item difficulty values. The content validity of the test was affected on two out of five exams based on cognitive level of items and on three out of five exams based on chapter coverage. Students’ self-efficacy expectations and test anxiety were not related to the likelihood to apply the self-tailoring procedure or to the degree of success students had in applying the procedure.The study provided a new perspective on self-tailored tests in college classroom with implications for teaching, assessment, and students’ metacognitive abilities.

No description available.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the cognitive and metacognitive strategies used by learners of Arabic as a foreign language (AFL) guided by three research questions: 1) What cognitive and metacognitive strategies do learners of Arabic as a Foreign Language (AFL) use?; 2) Do male and female learners of AFL use similar or different cognitive and metacognitive strategies?~ and 3) What is the relationship between the levels of Arabic proficiency and the use of cognitive and metacognitive strategies? Six classes of students (N=82) learning AFL were selected from an institution in the metropolitan Washington. DC area. The independent variable was the strategy used and the dependent variables were gender and levels of proficiency. To account for the missing advanced female learners. the researcher has dropped the advanced male learners in order to have equal cells for questions 2 and 3. Oxford's (1989) Strategy Inventory for Language Learning (SILL) was used as instrument to collect the data. SILL is a questionnaire developed to assess the frequency of various strategies used by learners of foreign languages and is an 80-item. likert-scaled, self-report instrument. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze data for question 1. An analysis of variance was conducted for questions 2 and 3. It is hypothesized that learners of Arabic as a foreign language use a variety of cognitive and metacognitive strategies in learning language. It is also hypothesized that there is a difference between male and female learners of AFL in use of cognitive and metacognitive strategies. Finally, it is hypothesized that there is a relationship between proficiency level of the learners and their use of learning strategies. Results showed that learners of AFL use cognitive and metacognitive strategies in the medium range (M =3.2, SD= 0.65 and M = 3.3. SD= 0.90 respectively). There were no significant differences between men and women in using either cognitive or metacognitive strategies. although certain strategies were used more often by men. There were no significant differences regarding various levels of proficiency. / Ed. D.

The internet has served as the virtual world since the beginning of the digital era, and it has provided consumers the valuable source of information and become a fundamental basis of e-commerce by passing the limit of time and distance of offline stores. It is hard to imagine our life without the internet. Because consumers store and access their private and financial information on the internet, information security is even more important than ever. Although many studies demonstrate the importance of information security to consumers, researchers have paid little attention to consumers\' inference processing underlying their perceptions of information security. We investigate how consumers infer and evaluate online information security based on consumer inference making process and metacognitive experience. We argue that consumers\' perceived security could be enhanced by simply increasing complexity, even if that increased complexity is meaningless. It is because consumers have a belief that security is achieved by sacrificing convenience or increasing complexity. We demonstrated that consumers evaluated a website more secure when asked to enter redundant information in Chapter 1. Chapter 2 suggested that disfluency and difficulty of retrieval could increase perceived security because metacognitive experience makes consumers misattribute their feeling of difficulty to technical difficulty. We found that the positive effect of disfluency was held when a product was not security-related. In Chapter 3, we focused on how to improve the accuracy of security judgments. We found that perceived security enhanced by meaningless complexity would be adjusted by asking specific dimensions of security (Confidentiality, Integrity, and Availability), and the positive impact of a disfluency effect could be debiased by providing participants the true source of their subjective difficulty. Furthermore, we demonstrated that consumers\' interpretation about accessibility experience varied depending on what kind of naïve theory was activated. Through a series of experiments, we demonstrated our arguments were valid and these results provided useful insights and implications about consumers\' inference processing and perception of information security. / Ph. D.

Mathematics education is a human activity that helps to develop mental processes in order to enhance logical and critical thinking which will contribute to one’s decision-making process and to solve problems (DBE, 2011c). For one to be able to do Mathematics, strategies should be generated in order to solve problems. The performance in Mathematics is very poor and educational researchers have identified various reasons for the poor performance in mathematics. Therefore, South Africa has developed an assessment tool known as the ANA, to determine the learners’ weaknesses in mathematics at national, provincial, district and school level (DBE, 2013). An approach research (in the South African context) was to explore Intermediate Phase Mathematics teacher’s awareness of their metacognitive strategy use. The main purpose of my research study was to understand, to what extent Intermediate Phase Mathematics teachers become aware of metacognitive strategies during an adapted lesson study process. To achieve this purpose, the study aims to investigate the teachers’ awareness of metacognitive strategies before and during an adapted lesson study process. Empirical qualitative research based on a design research approach took place within the interpretative paradigm. Descriptive data was generated by means of semi-structured focus group interviews and a reflective diary was held with double-medium participants who were selected. The data were analysed by means of content analyses which proceeded by using mind maps, where codes and themes were related to the literature. The results show that most of the teachers were aware of the metacognitive strategies, but it can be that they lack knowing when, where and how to use these metacognitive strategies as they do not plan their lessons on a regular basis. Teachers also feel more comfortable when planning lesson collaboratively as they feel that they learn from one another. In conclusion an adapted lesson study could be a positive plan of action to provide teachers with the opportunity to plan lessons collaboratively and reflect on one another’s’ ideas. Teachers can become more aware of their metacognitive strategies when planning lessons in order to implement these metacognitive strategies during their lessons. In this way learners could be empowered to become metacognitive (think about their thinking) and to reflect on their actions which might contribute to their performance of mathematics. / MEd (Mathematics Education), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

Mathematics education is a human activity that helps to develop mental processes in order to enhance logical and critical thinking which will contribute to one’s decision-making process and to solve problems (DBE, 2011c). For one to be able to do Mathematics, strategies should be generated in order to solve problems. The performance in Mathematics is very poor and educational researchers have identified various reasons for the poor performance in mathematics. Therefore, South Africa has developed an assessment tool known as the ANA, to determine the learners’ weaknesses in mathematics at national, provincial, district and school level (DBE, 2013). An approach research (in the South African context) was to explore Intermediate Phase Mathematics teacher’s awareness of their metacognitive strategy use. The main purpose of my research study was to understand, to what extent Intermediate Phase Mathematics teachers become aware of metacognitive strategies during an adapted lesson study process. To achieve this purpose, the study aims to investigate the teachers’ awareness of metacognitive strategies before and during an adapted lesson study process. Empirical qualitative research based on a design research approach took place within the interpretative paradigm. Descriptive data was generated by means of semi-structured focus group interviews and a reflective diary was held with double-medium participants who were selected. The data were analysed by means of content analyses which proceeded by using mind maps, where codes and themes were related to the literature. The results show that most of the teachers were aware of the metacognitive strategies, but it can be that they lack knowing when, where and how to use these metacognitive strategies as they do not plan their lessons on a regular basis. Teachers also feel more comfortable when planning lesson collaboratively as they feel that they learn from one another. In conclusion an adapted lesson study could be a positive plan of action to provide teachers with the opportunity to plan lessons collaboratively and reflect on one another’s’ ideas. Teachers can become more aware of their metacognitive strategies when planning lessons in order to implement these metacognitive strategies during their lessons. In this way learners could be empowered to become metacognitive (think about their thinking) and to reflect on their actions which might contribute to their performance of mathematics. / MEd (Mathematics Education), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

La première partie de ce travail de thèse est une revue de la littérature portant toutd'abord sur les origines du concept de métacognition et sur les différentes définitions etmodélisations du concept de métacognition proposées en sciences de l’éducation etpsychologie développementale. Sont ensuite abordées les expérimentations proposées dans lechamp de la psychologie cognitive et les études menées dans le domaine spécifique de lamétamémoire. L’utilisation en psychologie cognitive du concept de métacognition estégalement évoquée, à travers la littérature portant sur les liens existants entre métacognition etconscience de soi. Enfin, le dernier point abordé dans cette revue de la littérature porte surl’utilisation en pratique clinique du concept de métacognition, notamment concernant lesaltérations métacognitives dans la schizophrénie.La deuxième partie de la thèse est consacrée aux études expérimentales réalisées.L’objectif de ces études était de développer et d’explorer dans une population non clinique lescaractéristiques d’un outil de mesure de la conscience métacognitive sur la mémoire à courtterme, la mémoire de travail, la mémoire épisodique verbale, les fonctions exécutives, et lacognition sociale. Nous avons évalué dans une première étude l’impact de cette procéduremétacognitive sur les performances cognitives. Une deuxième étude avait pour objectifd'explorer la pertinence de l’utilisation de l’évaluation « on-line » de la consciencemétacognitive, pendant la tâche neuropsychologique, comparativement à une procédure «end-line », juste après la passation du test neuropsychologique, ainsi que l’impact des mesuresd’estime de soi, anxiété et symptomatologie dépressive sur les scores de consciencemétacognitive « on-line ».Dans la troisième partie de cette thèse, les résultats sont discutés, et mis enperspectives avec l’objectif, à savoir utiliser cet outil de mesure de la consciencemétacognitive auprès d’une population de sujets souffrant de schizophrénie. / The first part of this thesis is a literature review focused on the origin, the differentdefinitions and models of the concept of metacognition in educational science anddevelopmental psychology. This literature review focused also on the cognitive psychologyexperiments, in the specific area of metamemory. The use of cognitive psychology concept ofmetacognition, through the literature on the links between metacognition and self-awarenessis then discussed. Finally, the last point in this literature review focused on the clinical use ofthe concept of metacognition, particularly concerning metacognitive alterations inschizophrenia.The second part of the thesis is devoted to experimental studies. The aim was todevelop and explore the characteristics of a metacognitive awareness measurement tool onshort-term memory, working memory, episodic memory verbal, executive functions andsocial cognition in a non-clinical population. The impact of this metacognitive process oncognitive performance, the relevance of an "on-line" metacognitive awareness measure(during the neuropsychological task), and an "end-line" metacognitive awareness measure(just after the award of neuropsychological testing) were explored. The impact of measures ofself-esteem, anxiety and depressive symptoms on metacognitive awareness scores "on-line"were studied.The third part of this thesis proposed to discuss the different results found and theappropriateness of using metacognitive awareness assessment tool with persons sufferingfrom schizophrenia.

Syftet med pilotstudien är att pröva hur rekommenderade metoder för att uppmuntra elevers metakognitiva tänkande kan användas. Metakognition handlar om ”att lära att lära” och är relaterat till begrepp såsom återkoppling, självreglering och formativ bedömning. Forskning visar att elever som får träning i metakognition ökar sina prestationer. Ett av skolans mål enligt läroplanen för grundskolan, förskoleklassen och fritidshemmet 2011/2017 är att eleverna ska utveckla förmågan att bedöma sina resultat. Jag har undersökt hur elever i årskurs sju besvarar och uppfattar metakognitiva frågor i ämnena bild och svenska. Eleverna svarade på metakognitiva frågor vid tre olika tillfällen: vid planeringen, under genomförande samt vid utvärderingen av arbetsuppgiften. I samband med frågorna svarade de även på en enkät om hur de uppfattade de metakognitiva frågorna. Avsikten är att använda pilotstudiens resultat för att bereda mark för en större studie. I studien har en kvalitativ forskningsmetod använts. Resultatet visar att det är väsentligt att lärarna tar reda på elevernas olika förförståelse för de metakognitiva frågorna. Majoriteten av elever upplever de metakognitiva frågorna som oanvändbara, men av olika skäl. Om eleverna inte förstår frågorna tycker de att frågorna blir något utöver arbetsuppgiften. Om eleverna har en hög metakognitiv förförståelse kommer de att anse att frågorna är överflödiga. De flesta eleverna upplevde att de metakognitiva frågorna tog tid från den uppgift de skulle genomföra. Några elever uttryckte stort missnöje, stor frustration och irritation över frågorna. För att metakognitivt tänkande ska kunna tränas metodiskt med avsedd effekt, måste eleverna vara motiverade. En nyckelfaktor är att eleverna förstår vad träningen ska leda till. Detta behöver läraren arbeta med på olika sätt med olika grupper av elever. / This pilot study aims to test how recommended methods to promote students’ metacognitive thinking can be used. Metacognition is about “learning how to learn” and is related to conceptions like feedback, self-regulation and formative assessment. Research shows that students that get training in metacognition increase their performances. One of the goals according to the Swedish Curriculum for the compulsory school, preschool class and the recreation centre 2011/2017 is that students shall develop the ability to assess their results. I have examined how students in grade seven answer and apprehend metacognitive questions in the compulsory subjects Art and Swedish. The students answered metacognitive questions at three different times: when planning, when carrying through and when evaluating the task. In connection to answering the questions they also answered a questionnaire about their conception of the metacognitive questions. The intention is to use the result of the pilot study to prepare for a larger study. A qualitative research method has been used in this study. The result show that it’s substantial that the teachers find out about the students different preunderstanding of the metacognitive questions. The majority of the students find the metacognitive question useless, but for different reasons. If the students don’t understand the questions they think that the questions are something in addition to the task. If the students have a high metacognitive preunderstanding they will consider the questions as redundant. Most students thought that the metacognitive questions took time from the task they were supposed to do. Some students expressed great dissatisfaction, big frustration and irritation over the questions. To be able to train metacognitive thinking methodically with desired effect the students have to be motivated. A key factor is that the students understand what the training is supposed to leading. The teacher has to work in different ways with different groups of students with this.

Untersucht werden die Wirkungen unterschiedlicher Trainingsprogramme für Kinder mit Lernstörungen. <br /> - Im Motivationstraining werden das Zielsetzungsverhalten und die Attribution trainiert.<br /> - Das metakognitive Strategietraining trainiert die Orientierung, Planung, Temporegulation und Selbstkontrolle bei Lernaufgaben.<br /> Das Motivations- und das Strategietraining arbeiten mit unterrichtsstoff-unabhängigen Inhalten. Erst später erfolgt eine Übertragung auf den Schulunterricht. <br /> <br /> - Ein Rechtschreiblerntraining fördert die Motivation und metakognitive Strategien in Rechtschreibung, also am möglicherweise aversiv besetzten Inhalt, aber auch mit der Chance, dass die Kinder ihre negativen Lernerfahrungen bald als Irrtum einordnen können.<br /> Diese drei Trainingsprogramme werden in Kleingruppen realisiert. <br /> - Ein "Unterrichtsintegriertes Training" trainiert die Motivation und metakognitive Strategien im Klassenunterricht.<br /> <br /> Die Programme wurden bei Kindern im Alter von 9 bis 12 Jahre mit sonderpädagogischem Förderbedarf im Lernen eingesetzt. Der IQ der Schüler lag zwischen 80 und 100. Die Schüler waren in ihrem Lernen entmutigt und realisierten ineffektive Lernstrategien. Lese-Rechtschreibschwäche oder Rechenschwäche wurden ausgeschlossen. <br /> <br /> Als Effektvariable wurden kognitive, metakognitive und motivationale Maße erhoben, aber auch das Verhalten bei Schwierigkeitserleben. Kontrolliert wurden sowohl die unmittelbaren Trainingswirkungen als auch die Langzeitwirkungen nach 3 bis 6 Monaten. Darüber hinaus wurden differenzielle Effekte erfasst.<br /> <br /> Alle Trainingsprogramme erreichten gute Effektstärken in kognitiven und metakognitiven Variablen. Eine gute Ermutigungswirkung erzielten allerdings nur das Motivations- und das Strategietraining. Diese Ermutigungswirkung wiederum erwies sich als entscheidend für die Nachhaltigkeit und Anwendung gelernter Strategien bei Schwierigkeitserleben.<br /> <br /> Verallgemeinert erfordert ein Trainingserfolg folgende Bedingungen: <br /> 1. Verbindung des Trainings von Motivation und Lernstrategien. <br /> 2. Realisierung eines Intensivtrainings, in dem die Ressourcen des Kindes aktiviert werden. <br /> 3. Festigung der gelernten Strategien über einen längeren Zeitraum und Anwendung im Schulunterricht. / Results of four training approaches with learning disabled children are presented; their age range was 9-12, IQ range 80 to 100. The students were characterized as discouraged in their learning efforts, they had developed ineffective learning styles. <br /> - Training program A aimed at training achievement motivation in learning activities including attribution.<br /> - Training program B covered metacognitive strategies (orientation, planning and self-control etc. ).<br /> <br /> The two training programs focused mainly on objectives which were not related to German and mathematics school curriculae in order to avoid averse feelings which might be associated with the regular curriculum by students. Generalization efforts to classroom learning were undertaken at a later stage of the program.<br /> <br /> - Training program C focussed on training motivation and meta-cognitive strategies in orthography.<br /> The A, B, and C training programs were performed with small groups.<br /> - Training D contained motivation and metacognitive strategies while students were taught in class.<br /> <br /> Measures of students with extreme impulsiveness and students with intense lability were analyzed by using multi-variate procedures. It could be shown that each training program resulted in improved cognitive and metacognitive functioning. Training programs A and B showed remarkable encouragement effects.<br /> <br /> Results were discussed in terms of improved learning conditions like. <br /> 1. Intensive training, activating emotional resources of the learner and metacognitive training are necessary conditions. <br /> 2. After metacognitive and coping strategy criteria have been reached, maintenance strategies over time have to be employed, including generalization efforts to classroom learning. <br /> 3. Any successful training has to include metacognitive and encouragement strategies.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-06-02T20:30:53Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 4304.pdf: 1024628 bytes, checksum: 668e3d7ee9a9c99bca8b4665d1697ba9 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2012-03-09 / Financiadora de Estudos e Projetos / Metacognition can be defined as the knowledge people have about their own cognitive processes, which can help them plan, monitor, regulate and assess their cognitive activities. Studies in the field have produced instruments and measures designed to assess metacognitive performance, many of them based on Flavell s Model of Cognitive Monitoring andas well as Nelsons and Narens model. The present study focused on gaining a better understanding of metacognitive monitoring, which is usually assessed through judgements, which represents one way of measuring metacognition. The aim of the present study was to investigate children s metacognitive monitoring during the execution of three subtests of the BMI (Multidimensional Battery of Child Intelligence), based on the Cattell-Horn-Carroll s model of intelligence. The subtests chosen assessed quantitative knowledge, crystallized intelligence and fluid intelligence. Participants were 44 fifht-year students, and each child was individually evaluated. Following each of the subtests, children were asked to estimate their performance. Results showed that children s repertoire included metacognitive abilities, and some metacognitive monitoring rates were better for quantitative knowledge . When these abilities were compared relative to cognitive performance, those with the highest scores on the intelligence subtests demonstrated better metacognitive monitoring. These results, obtained with Brazilian children, are compared with results reported in the international literature, and the implications in terms of promoting metacognitive training are discussed. / A metacognição pode ser entendida como o conhecimento que o indivíduo possui sobre seu próprio funcionamento cognitivo, o que lhe permite planejar, monitorar, regular e avaliar suas atividades cognitivas. Estudos da área têm sido conduzidos para produzir instrumentos e medidas confiáveis do desempenho metacognitivo dos indivíduos, diversos deles tendo como referencial teórico os modelos formulados por Flavell e Nelson e Narens. Alguns destes instrumentos são escalas de autorrelato. O monitoramento metacognitivo, foco do presente estudo, é avaliado com frequência por meio dos julgamentos, que constituem outra ferramenta de avaliação da metacognição. O presente estudo teve como objetivo investigar o monitoramento metacognitivo de crianças durante a realização de três subtestes que compõem a Bateria Multidimensional de Inteligência Infantil: Desempenho em Matemática, Vocabulário Geral e Indução. O referencial teórico desta bateria é o Modelo Cattell-Horn-Carroll de inteligência e os subtestes referidos são destinados à avaliação das capacidades de conhecimento quantitativo, inteligência cristalizada e inteligência fluida, respectivamente. Participaram do estudo 44 alunos do quinto ano do Ensino Fundamental. Eles realizaram, individualmente, os três subtestes da BMI, e foram solicitados a emitir estimativas acerca de seu desempenho; estes julgamentos correspondem ao monitoramento metacognitivo. Os resultados indicaram que a amostra já apresenta habilidades de monitoramento cognitivo, e algumas medidas de monitoramento mostraram-se significativamente melhores para o subteste Desempenho em Matemática. Quando as habilidades de monitoramento foram comparadas de acordo com o desempenho cognitivo dos indivíduos, foram observados melhores índices de monitoramento metacognitivo nos indivíduos com melhor desempenho nos. Os dados são relevantes para confirmar, na população nacional, as informações da literatura internacional, e também para discutir a importância do incentivo e estímulo ao treinamento das habilidades metacognitivas.