Abstract
This study was conducted to identify metacognitive strategies used by secondary school children in the three stages of writing process, to identify their distribution within metacognitive strands and metacognitive fields, and to identify whether they differ according to rural / urban schools, grades and sex. 408 observation notes, written exercises from 278 Mother Tongue lessons, 289 interviews and responses to a questionnaire were collected from 678 Grade 6-10 students. Qualitative data were coded, frequencies calculated and differences between proportions were Z tested. Quantitative data were clustered and analyzed using Chi square and Factor analysis. Writing Stage is dominant in the Writing Process of Grades 6 -10 students of both sexes and in rural / urban schools. Planning and Revising stages are mixed with the Writing Stage. The Planning Stage is dominated by an explanation of the lesson by the teacher. Students do not show an awareness or regulation of metacognitive strategies in the Planning of Writing. Knowledge Telling Process can be found in the Writing Stage. Revising Stage is dominated by mechanical and surface level changes. There is a tendency towards a boy-girl dichotomy. Girls emphasize the Planning Stage whereas the boys emphasize the Writing Stage. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.4038/sljss.v31i1-2.5462 Sri Lanka Journal of Social Sciences 2008/2009 31/32 (1 & 2) 27-46
Highlights
Flavell (1976) first coined the term metacognition as “one’s knowledge concerning one’s own cognitive processes and products or anything related to them, e.g. the learning related properties of information and data”
The objectives of the research were to identify metacognitive strategies used by secondary school children (Grades 6-10) in the three stages of Writing Process, to identify distribution patterns of metacognitive strategies used by secondary school children within ‘metacognitive strands (Awareness and Regulation)’ and ‘metacognitive fields (Generating ideas, Goal setting, Organization, Self monitoring and Self evaluation)’; to identify the nature of their knowledge/ awareness and monitoring / regulation of metacognitive strategies and to identify whether the metacognitive strategies used differ according to the type of school, grade (6-10) and sex
The 31 items of the questionnaire that were significantly related to school, 34 items significantly related to grade and 61 items significantly related to sex of the child were categorized into 11, 11, and 4 factors respectively and they were compared with the three stages of Writing Process, metacognitive strands and specific metacognitive strategies (Table 11, 12 & 13)
Summary
Flavell (1976) first coined the term metacognition as “one’s knowledge concerning one’s own cognitive processes and products or anything related to them, e.g. the learning related properties of information and data”. He further describes metacognition as “the active monitoring and consequent regulation and orchestration of these processes in relation to the cognitive objects or data on which they bear, usually in the service of some concrete goal or objective” (Flavell, 1976). According to the constructivist viewpoint, the learner should have a control over his or her own learning because the responsibility is with him in sensitizing with the learning and the student needs cognitive and metacognitive knowledge and skills to do this successfully
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