Thesis (Ed.D.)--Boston University / PLEASE NOTE: Boston University Libraries did not receive an Authorization To Manage form for this thesis or dissertation. It is therefore not openly accessible, though it may be available by request. If you are the author or principal advisor of this work and would like to request open access for it, please contact us at open-help@bu.edu. Thank you. / The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of metacognitive strategy reading instruction on sixth grade students' content reading comprehension. Forty-one students in two sixth grade social studies classes participated in the study. Twenty students in the treatment social studies class were taught the purpose and value, as well as the techniques of self-monitoring of the summarizing strategy to help them recall and organize key information from their social studies textbook. Twenty-one students in the control group were taught summarizing as a cognitive reading strategy without the metacognitive components of value, purpose, and selfmonitoring. The two social studies classes had no significant differences on pre-test measures of formal and informal reading comprehension. After a 1 0-week study period, the posttest results of the two groups were compared to determine the effects of the strategy instruction on the students' content reading comprehension. Significant differences were found on the posttest scores of metacognitive strategy knowledge and informal reading comprehension measures between the treatment and the control group that could be attributed to the metacognitive strategy instruction. Metacognitive strategy instruction was the most effective in increasing the reading comprehension of high-ability treatment students, although it also increased the content comprehension of the low and average ability readers. These findings suggest that metacognitive strategy instruction including the value, purpose, and self-monitoring of the summarizing strategy is more effective in increasing reading comprehension than the summarizing strategy alone. Students in the treatment group were observed beginning to use the summarizing strategy independently in their social studies class. Thirteen students in each class were interviewed about their use of reading strategies, their strengths and weaknesses as readers, and their opinion and approaches to the social studies textbook. These same students were observed reading the social studies textbook using a think-aloud procedure and in their social studies class, to better determine if there were any differences between strategies mentioned and those used in the process of reading. Students in both the control and treatment groups mentioned the use of more pre-reading strategies than they actually used while reading. These students used more during and after reading strategies while reading in their social studies class. / 2031-01-01

This study focused on exploring various dimensions of metacognitive knowledge developed by advanced readers in academic contexts, and explaining their behaviors of using strategies and their languages from metacognitive perspectives. The findings of this study were further discussed with respect to good readers’ characteristics of utilizing their knowledge, strategy and language resources metacognitively in their reading comprehension process. The types of metacognitive knowledge and the ways this knowledge is involved in the reading comprehension process do not seem to vary much according to the languages (L1 or L2) of given tasks. No matter in what languages they were asked to read academic texts, the participants were influenced by their goal and interest, as these played a critical role in guiding the reading comprehension process. While reading academic texts, both languages of these advanced readers actively interacted. First, the readers used their two linguistic resources in processing information of the text. The readers processed information by means of simplifying or elaborating information using their two languages. Secondly, they used their two languages interactively during the entire reading process, from planning, monitoring, and evaluating, to writing a summary. With the findings of this study, theoretical, methodological, and educational implications are made respectively. Finally, several contextual limitations of this study are acknowledged, requiring cautions in interpreting the findings of this study, and calling for future studies. / text

No description available.

As fundamental components of a language, words are essential for successful language learning. Vocabulary learning strategies thus become a vital important field to be focused on. This investigation is based on the framework of O' Malley and Chamot' s (1990) taxonomy about language learning strategies, which include metacognitive strategies, cognitive strategies, and social/affective strategies. This study aims at studying the relationship between students' attitudes toward vocabulary learning, their vocabulary learning strategies and their vocabulary level. The participants of this study are fifty English majors from a university in China. A vocabulary test and a questionnaire are used so as to collect data from the investigated students. Finally, this study generates the following results: (1) the students hold a neutral attitude toward vocabulary learning, and they believe vocabulary learning sometimes is interesting, but sometimes not; (2) the students adopt all the three strategies, but cognitive strategies are most frequently used; (3) the correlation analysis shows that there is a significant relationship between the students' attitudes and their strategy use, the strategy use and their vocabulary level; (4) the successful learners are more positive as regards English vocabulary learning, and adopt learning strategies more frequently than less successful learners. Based on the findings of the investigation, some pedagogical implications are provided to suggest teachers encourage and help students to hold an active and positive attitude toward English learning, and introduce more learning strategies to promote the students' English acquisition.

ABSTRACT THE CONTRIBUTION OF COGNITIVE AND METACOGNITIVE STRATEGY USE TO SEVENTH GRADE STUDENTS&rsquo / SCIENCE ACHIEVEMENT AKYOL, G&uuml / ls&uuml / m M.S., Department of Elementary Science and Mathematics Education Supervisor : Assoc. Prof. Dr. Ceren TEKKAYA Co-Supervisor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Semra SUNGUR January 2009, 97 pages The purposes of the study were to examine the differences in the level of students&rsquo / cognitive and metacognitive strategy use and to investigate the contribution of cognitive and metacognitive strategy use (rehearsal, elaboration, organization, critical thinking, and metacognitive self-regulation) to 7th grade students&rsquo / science achievement. This study also interested in exploring the relationships between students&rsquo / background characteristics (gender, prior knowledge, socioeconomic status) and the variables including students&rsquo / cognitive and metacognitive strategy use and science achievement. The study was carried out during 2007-2008 spring semester at 15 public elementary schools in Ke&ccedil / i&ouml / ren, district of Ankara. A total of 1517 seventh grade students who were volunteers and had permission from their parents involved in the study. Data were collected through Background Characteristics Survey, Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire and Science Achievement Test and analyzed by using a One-Way Repeated ANOVA, Multiple Linear Regression Analyses and a Canonical Correlation Analysis. The analyses revealed that there were significant differences in the level of students&rsquo / cognitive and metacognitive strategy use scores. Besides, elaboration and metacognitive self-regulation strategy use made a statistically significant contribution to the prediction of students&rsquo / achievement in science (p&lt / .05). Metacognitive self-regulation strategy use was found to be the main predictor of science achievement (beta=.11). The first canonical variate indicated that prior knowledge, mother&rsquo / s educational level, father&rsquo / s educational level, number of reading materials at home, frequency of buying a daily newspaper, presence of a separate study room, presence of a computer with internet connection at home are associated with cognitive and metacognitive strategy use and science achievement.

Students with specific learning disabilities (SLD) have difficulty with most reading skills, including reading comprehension (Hulme & Snowling, 2011). Improving reading comprehension skills requires efficient interventions that consider both meaning- and code-based skills simultaneously. Using a single-subject multiple-baseline design across participants, with alternating treatment design, this study compared two reading interventions (repeated reading vs. tablet text-to-speech) combined with a meta-cognitive strategy (question generation). Three fourth-grade and third-grade students who had been diagnosed by their school as having reading difficulties (reading one to two grades behind their expected reading levels) participated in the study. Using the index of narrative complexity (Labov, 1973; Petersen, Gillam, & Gillam, 2008) as a major dependent variable, two participants showed improvement in reading comprehension skills as measured by visual analysis and the effect size between means. However, there were slight differences for the RAAC intervention over the tablet intervention for one participant. The time required to administer the tablet intervention was shorter than the time required to administer the RAAC intervention (an average of 12.73 minutes for the RAAC vs. 5.45 minutes for the tablet), which is an important consideration when deciding to use an intervention.

No description available.

The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of the cognitive monitoring learning log (CMLL), as a metacognitive strategy, on college students' developmental mathematics course success, problem-solving performance, and attitude toward mathematics and the CMLL. Using a pretest-posttest control group design that employed mixed research methodologies, the researcher examined data collected from four sections of a pre-algebra course; two of which received the CMLL intervention. Data sources included testing, surveys, student self-report, and interviews. Data analysis using analysis of variance (ANOVA), independent and paired samples t-tests were utilized, along with appropriate case analysis. Important findings that emerged from this study are as follows: the CMLL strategy can have some bearing on specific student outcomes (such as course grades); it can positively impact students' attitudes towards math, but not their problem-solving performance or attitudes towards CMLL. The case study analysis based on interviews and logs written by students provided additional insight into their thoughts and perceptions, supplementing the story gathered from the quantitative data. Eighty-eight percent (88%) of those interviewed reported benefits of the CMLL strategy. While findings from this study are inconclusive as to the impact of learning logs in the cognitive aspects, it was not shown to be a detriment either. Efforts should be made to determine how best to intertwine the CMLL strategy with other methods of instruction that will benefit college students in developmental mathematics courses the most. Recommendations for further study and future research considerations are included. / CITE/Mathematics and Science Education

This study aimed at investigating the contribution of motivational beliefs (intrinsic goal orientation, extrinsic goal orientation, task value, control of learning beliefs, self-efficacy and test anxiety), cognitive and metacognitive strategy use (rehearsal, elaboration, organization, critical thinking, metacognitive self-regulation, time and study environment, effort regulation, peer learning, help seeking) to Turkish high school students&rsquo / achievement in biology. In this study Turkish version of the Motivated Strategies for Learning Questionnaire developed by Pintrich, Smith, Garcia, and McKeachie (1991) and a Biology Achievement Test developed by the researcher were used as measuring instruments. The study was conducted in 15 selected schools throughout the five districts in Yozgat (Sorgun, Yerk&ouml / y, Bogazliyan and Saraykent districts and city center) with a total of 519 tenth grade General and Anatolian high school students attending Mathematics and Science group in spring 2004&ndash / 2005 semester. The data obtained from the administration of the measuring instruments were analyzed by using Multiple Linear Regression Analyses and a Canonical Correlation Analysis. Results of the statistical analyses indicated that extrinsic goal orientation and task value each made a statistically significant contribution to the prediction of students&rsquo / achievement (p&amp / #61500 / 0.05), while intrinsic goal orientation, control of learning beliefs, self-efficacy for learning and performance, and test anxiety failed to achieve significance (p &gt / 0.05). Rehearsal strategy use, organization strategy use, management of time and study environment, and peer learning each made a statistically significant contribution to the prediction of students&rsquo / achievement in biology. The first pair of canonical variates indicated that higher levels of intrinsic goal orientation, task value, and self-efficacy for learning and performance were associated with higher levels of cognitive and metacognitive strategy use except rehearsal strategy use and help seeking.

In my final thesis I have dealt with the development of metacognitive strategies for primary school pupils in the Montessori environment. The aim of the first part of the thesis was to anchor the entire issue in the broader context of the current educational situation with respect to the requirements of The General educational program. In the second part of the thesis I described both - metacognitive strategies as well as key aspects of Montessori education. This characteristic I based on the analysis of the available literature. The final part of theory deals with the synthesis of both areas. This synthesis showes their harmonious connections and considerable complementarity. In this section I also revealed some problems that educators face in practice, and I tried to outline possible ways to address them - from my own experience of teaching practice. Empiric part of thesis uncovers the ways of introduction metacognitive strategies to education and presents few "examples of good practice.