The Role of Metacognition in Learning and Achievement

Metacognition simply put, is the process of thinking about thinking. Metacognition refers to the awareness and understanding of one’s own thought processes, including the ability to monitor and control those processes.

Metacognition is important in every aspect of school and life. It involves self-reflection on one’s current position, which helps to design future goals and evaluate potential actions, strategies, and achieve desired results.

Research shows metacognition increases student motivation because students feel more in control of their own learning. Students who learn metacognitive strategies are more aware of their own thinking and more likely to be active learners and will learn more deeply.

The most important reason for developing metacognition is that it can improve the application of knowledge, skills, and character qualities in realms beyond the immediate context in which they were learned. This can result in the transfer of competencies across disciplines. Transfer can also be necessary within a discipline, such as when a particular idea or skill was learned with one example, but students must know how to apply it to another problem or context. Transfer is the goal of all education, as students are expected to internalize what they learn in school and apply it to life.

Future articles will discuss PEL metacognitive study strategy. The PEL program focuses on helping students to learn metacognitive strategies.