Metacognitive listening instruction is the method recommended to Swedish teachers by the Swedish National Board of Education (Skolverket) in a document authored by Lena Börjesson (2012) found in the commentary material to the steering documents. This method is based on a metacognitive pedagogical sequence of L2 listening instruction suggested by Vandergrift and Goh (2012). In this study, I test this method using action research. The participants of the study were first year upper secondary school students from a vocational program, the control group consisted of students from a preparatory program. In general, the treatment group exhibited low motivation to study, while the second group had higher motivation. Both groups attended an upper secondary school in the South of Sweden. During seven classes, the treatment group (n=16) received training in the method, and the control group (n=21) was given more traditional tests during six classes. In this study, I used the following methods to obtain my data: the PET listening test, the listening segment of the Swedish National Test of English and the Metacognitive Awareness Listening Questionnaire (MALQ). The results demonstrated that both groups improved their results on the listening aptitude test significantly; however, the treatment group did not with a statistical significance improve more than the control group. Secondly, the students did not perceive that they were using more strategies after the explicit strategy training they had received; both groups reported to using strategies less, as the listening texts became increasingly difficult. Thirdly, the students from the two groups did not report perceiving any difference in learning how to listen, despite one of the groups receiving explicit instruction in listening strategies. Finally, the students both in the treatment group and in the control group have reported to increasing listening anxiety after the instructional period, but the levels of anxiety increased less in the treatment group. The results of this study thus do not unequivocally suggest the effectiveness of the method for teaching listening recommended by Skolverket. In particular, it is questionable whether the method is at all suitable for students with low motivation as those who have participated in the study.

This qualitative study investigates how and why students pay attention and engage in a German Level One class in a public high school in Utah. Data were collected from surveys, classroom observations, video/audio recordings, and interviews. Findings indicate that three major factors influenced student engagement during this study-type of motivation (extrinsic or intrinsic), type of learning activity (individual, partner, or class), and the mode of activity (technology, paper, or speaking). Additional findings offer support for the idea that metacognition may enhance language learning.

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To operate in our modern society an individual need to possess a well-rounded reading ability, and to know of and use reading strategies is crucial for learners to develop this ability. The present study sets out to explore the beliefs of Swedish English teachers regarding the significance of reading and reading strategies. Furthermore, the study aims to investigate to what extent their classroom practice of teaching explicit reading strategies instructions is consistent with their beliefs. In this qualitative study, four 7-9 English teachers and two student groups participated. These come from two Swedish schools with different social-economic backgrounds. The data was collected by conducting content analysis of the teachers' lesson plans and conducting semi-structured interviews with both the teachers and students. The results show that the teachers express positive attitude to reading and reading strategies as they believe that these constitute essential elements in the communicative classroom. However, the results also indicate that the teachers’ actual classroom practice for reading strategies is not always consistent with their beliefs: for example, despite all teachers being positive to reading and reading strategies’ instruction, only the teachers from the school with lower social-economic background provide reading strategies’ instruction explicitly. Further, the results indicate that factors such as the teachers’ theoretical conceptions, time contraints, student composition and proficiency level, the school’s socio-economic background are the reasons for the teachers including explicit reading strategies’ instruction in their repertoire.

本研究的目的在探討「交互教學法」對台灣國中生英文閱讀能力與後設認知之效益，並研究國中生對此教學的回應。參與本研究的學生為82名苗栗縣某公立高中的兩班九十五學年度九年級學生，實驗組施以12週交互教學法，控制組則為傳統老師講授方式，在教學活動前後，實驗組和控制組所有學生皆施以閱讀理解測驗（採自全民英檢初級閱讀測驗）及後設認知問卷，實驗組多加施以交互教學法回饋問卷。 本研究結果摘要如下： 1. 實驗組與控制組在閱讀理解測驗表現有顯著差異，亦即，交互教學法有效地增進學生閱讀理解表現。 2. 後設認知方面，實驗組在「閱讀信心」、「閱讀困難」和「閱讀能力強的人應具備的能力」三項後設認知能力表現顯著提高，在「有效閱讀策略」與「補救策略」二項之後設認知表現亦有明顯進步。 3. 交互教學法有助於增強學生對閱讀策略的觀念和用法，大部分受試者認為「摘要」與「預測」是最實用的閱讀策略。 4. 回饋問卷顯示，大部分實驗組學生對交互教學法持正面支持態度，並表示願意將所學之閱讀策略運用在未來的英語閱讀中。 根據上述結果，本研究建議國中英語教師可運用「交互教學法」增進學生英 語閱讀能力與後設認知能力，並提升學生學習英語的興趣。同時為了讓「交互教學法」發揮最大效用，教師應考慮學生在語言學習上之個別差異，以避免學生心理上的排斥與學習上的反效果。 / This study aimed to examine the effectiveness of reciprocal teaching in promoting EFL junior high school students’ reading comprehension and metacognitive awareness. In addition, students’ responses to reciprocal teaching were probed. Participants of this study included 82 ninth-graders from two intact classes in one public senior high school in Miaoli in the fall semester of 2006. The experimental group was engaged in reciprocal teaching and the control group was instructed in the traditional teacher-centered method. The reading comprehension test of GEPT at elementary level was used as the pretest and posttest to measure the participants’ reading ability before and after the instruction. Additionally, two questionnaires were adopted: one for investigating the effects of reciprocal teaching on students’ metacognitive awareness and the other for measuring the experimental group’s attitudes towards reciprocal teaching. After twelve weeks of experiment, the main results of this study can now be summarized as follows: 1. The participants’ reading comprehension ability improved significantly after the implementation of reciprocal teaching. 2. The participants’ metacognitive awareness was significantly higher especially in the categories of students’ reading confidence, students’ perceptions of reading difficulties, and students’ perceptions of a good reader. Students’ perceptions of repair strategies and effective strategies, though no significantly different , the participants did make progress in recognition of top-down and bottom-up strategies. 3. Reciprocal teaching helped the participants build up knowledge and use the instructed strategies. The strategies viewed by the participants as the most practical ones were “summarizing” and “predicting”. 4. According to the findings from the response questionnaire, the participants’ attitudes toward and responses to reciprocal teaching may be described as being supportive and positive. In addition, most of the participants expressed their willingness to employ the instructed strategies in their future English reading. The results suggest that reciprocal teaching can be a viable approach to help improve junior high school students’ reading comprehension ability and metacognitive awareness of English reading. Besides, students’ interest in learning can be stirred up. Yet, it should be noted that when conducting reciprocal teaching, teachers need to be taken into account students’ personal difference in language learning to avoid potential rejection.

Recent international surveys reveal a decline in reading performance among Swedish students during the past decade. In the light of these results, this thesis describes the reading literacy of a class of high-performing students in the Swedish upper secondary school, in order to discern characteristics of successful readers. More specifically, the aim is to describe these students’ reading literacy in terms of their reading habits, approaches to texts, reading strategies, as well as reading positions. The study is framed within a socio-cultural perspective and is based on qualitative methods such as case studies, classroom observations and a group discussion, in combination with a partly quantitative survey. A methodological contribution to the research field is the attempt to develop a method for analyzing students’ reading positions, mainly based on the concept of text movability, as used by af Geijerstam, Liberg et al. The results reveal a deep reading position towards non-fiction texts among a majority of these high-performing students. In comparison with students who adopt a surface-oriented position, these students tend to show greater textual awareness and interactive text movability, and seem to use a wider repertoire of reading strategies in order to attain reading success. This study identifies the most prominent features of high-performing students as their textual awareness, i.e. an ability to comment on content, form, function and potential readers of texts, genre awareness, i.e. an ability to identify various text genres, and metacognitive awareness, i.e. knowing what strategies to use and when to use them. These features can be related to the students’ descriptions of their reading habits which imply that they read a great variety of texts, including both fiction and non-fiction. Most of these students report that they read daily and of their own accord. Having broad textual experience helps when it comes to reading texts in specialized domains that require inferencing and/or field knowledge. There also appears to be a match between the literacy supported in school and the literacy sustained in the students’ home environment. The pedagogical implications are the need for continuous work with students’ reading development and reading strategies, making students aware of different text genres and their specific features, and the importance for students to be challenged in their reading, but naturally in combination with appropriate scaffolding methods.

Pour comprendre le développement de la conscience métacognitive d'enfants plurilingues, il est nécessaire d'examiner quels sont les facteurs qui seraient susceptibles de la développer ou de la freiner. La conscience rnétacognitive est considérée comme un élément essentiel de développement des capacités d'apprentissage. Définie en tant que capacité à planifier et à contrôler les processus réflexifs, une conscience métacognitive accrue est susceptible d'aider l'enfant plurilingue à prendre le contrôle de l'organisation de son propre apprentissage. L'examen de l'influence des facteurs susceptibles de l'améliorer a été conduit à partir d'une approche par les biographies langagières. Les résultats suggèrent que l'apprentissage d'une langue étrangère à un âge où l'enfant peut prendre conscience de son apprentissage, est l'un de ces facteurs d'amélioration. Les avantages de l'expérience d'apprentissage d'une langue étrangère sont aussi bien d'ordres sociaux que métacognitifs. / Nowadays children more often come into contact with multiple languages at different ages and in variable contexts. Consequently, they may at times be required to communicate in situations in which they lack sufficient understanding of the language used. Knowing about communication, that is, being aware of the interaction, of the potential obstacles and of different strategies to overcome them, is essential to bring exolingual situations to a successful end. Are there features of language acquisition that affect the development of this facet of metacognitive awareness? ln this thesis a specific aspect of early plurilingualism is examined. Reactions of children who learned a new language at an age and in a context in which they were able to be conscious about their learning are compared to those of children who learned a new language from birth onwards. Results demonstrate that a conscious language learning experience is a relevant factor in the development of metacognitive awareness

Academic achievement is deemed a significant indicator for a successful future. Cognitive ability, home environment, and metacognition are among the many factors research has posited to contribute to academic achievement and later success (Alloway & Alloway, 2010; Bradley & Caldwell, 1984, Veenman, Wilhelm, & Beishuizen, 2004). The present study examines the relation between cognitive ability (working memory (WM) and nonverbal ability), metacognitive awareness, implicit theories of IQ, home environment (socioeconomic status (SES), home life, and parental involvement in homework), and learning outcomes (grades) in two distinct sample populations. The study used a sample of 11-15-year-olds and their parents from two high schools in Carriacou, Grenada (n=50) and Lakeshore Middle School in Florida (n=38). A stepwise regression revealed that cognitive ability, implicit theories of IQ, and home environment predicted overall grades of the Grenada sample. Several differences between the two cultures emerged including what predicted their implicit theories of IQ. The present study will benefit the educational community, as the findings could provide new insight into how students’ cognitive ability, implicit theories of IQ, and home life influence learning outcomes in a developed and developing population. The practical implications suggest more effective culturally responsive educational programs for students based on their learning style and learning needs. The present study has significance with reference to Grenada, in that because of little to no research available investigating this topic it will provide a basis for subsequent research to occur.

Within the educational psychology literature there is an abundance of research in the field of metacognition. The concentration of this research however has been in primary and secondary school contexts with little attention given to tertiary students' understanding or use of metacognition; there has been even less attention to whether age is a factor in tertiary students' perceptions of their metacognitive processes. The primary purpose of this study was to explore the perceptions of two distinct groups of first year university students, towards their understanding and usage of metacognitive processes and strategies. The two groups defined were traditional school leavers and mature age students. The findings from the exploration of these perceptions were compared to ascertain the similarities and differences in metacognitive processes between the two cohorts. The data collected for this study were obtained through a process of individual face-to-face in- depth interviews. The choice of this methodology was deliberate in order to gather rich data about the students' perceptions and experiences rather than attempt to measure their levels of metacognition against some predetermined standard. Data were collected and analyzed on the two constructs of metacognition which were identified in the literature search. These were metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive control. A range of affective variables such as self efficacy, motivation and expectancy of success, which impact on students' metacognitive abilities and processes, were also considered in the data collection and analysis. The findings indicated that age was a factor in determining some differences and similarities in students' perceptions of their own and others metacognitive processes. In certain cases the traditional school leavers' recency of experience with formal study was deemed an advantage; in others the life experience of the mature age students was perceived an advantage. In some instances the age of the student had no discernable impact on their understanding of, and ability to, utilize metacognitive strategies. These findings assist to broaden the understanding of student perceptions of metacognition in the tertiary context. The findings also make it imperative that tertiary institutions make fewer assumptions about the skills and abilities of their commencing students based on the criterion of age and offer more opportunities to assist students to understand the value of developing and improving their metacognitive processes.

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.