Metacognition research in mathematics education: from hot topic to mature field

Abstract

Metacognition has proved a fertile field for research ineducation for many years, mainly inspired by the earlywork of Flavell on metamemory in the 1970s. Since Flavell(1976, 1979, 1981) and his colleagues initiated researchinto metacognition, the use of the term proliferated untilthere was an extensive ‘‘family of concepts that [were]often referred to generically as metacognition’’ (Brown,1987, p. 109). This was mainly in the area of metacognitiveresearch on reading but there was a growing body of earlywork in mathematics education as well mainly related toproblem solving particularly inspired by Schoenfeld (1983,1985, 1987) and Garofalo and Lester (1985). Problemsolving remains a fruitful area for inspiration in metacog-nition research in mathematics education today. As Yimerand Ellerton point out in this issue, ‘‘investigating theextent to which students value problem solving and theextent to which they value themselves as problem solversare important aspects of metacognitive research’’.More recently, Flavell has been working in metacogni-tion but in the new area of visual metacognition (see Levin,2004) which has not as yet been taken up in mathematicseducation but may prove to be a new direction of researchin the future. Instead, a majority of researchers in meta-cognitive research in mathematics education have returnedto the roots of the term and share Flavell’s early definitionand elaborations (Desoete & Veenman, 2006). This is notto imply that the field has been static in mathematicseducation. On the contrary, by firmly establishing thefoundations of the construct and building on these foun-dations, several researchers in the field have extendedFlavell’s work gainfully and there is a growing body ofknowledge in the area.Metacognition has often been described simply asthinking about one’s own thinking. Flavell, Miller, andMiller (2002) define it as ‘‘any knowledge or cognitiveactivity that takes as its object, or regulates, any aspect ofany cognitive activity’’ (p. 164). Flavell’s (1979) model ofmetacognition and cognitive monitoring has underpinnedmuch of the research on metacognition since he firstarticulated it. According to his model, a person’s ability tocontrol ‘‘a wide variety of cognitive enterprises occursthrough the actions and interactions among four classes ofphenomena: (a) metacognitive knowledge, (b) metacogni-tive experiences, (c) goals (or tasks), and (d) actions (orstrategies)’’ (p. 906). The elements of this model have nowbeen extended by others (e.g., elaborations of metacogni-tive experiences, see Efklides, 2001, 2002) or are thesubject of debate (e.g., motivational and emotionalknowledge as a component of metacognitive knowledge,see Op ‘t Eynde, De Corte & Verschaffel, 2006). Subse-quently, this has led to many theoretical elaborations,interventions and ascertaining studies in mathematicseducation research. Given the extent of research in the fieldof metacognition and mathematics education, this themeissue that includes theoretical developments and the latestempirical findings addressing developmental issues and thelink to developing mathematical competencies is timely.The issue begins with an overview by Schneider andArtelt of developments in metacognition research andtheory generally. This paper reviews recent trends inresearch on metacognition and its relationship to thedevelopment of mathematical competencies. Major