When metacognitive prompts help information search in collaborative setting

Abstract

IntroductionIt is not surprising that information problem solving (IPS) as “metacognitively complex situations” (Veenman et al., 2004) become an interesting area to study ways to foster the metacognitive processing they required, but that are not spontaneously activated. ObjectiveThe goal of the present study was to investigate the positive effect of metacognitive incentives, provided as question prompts, on the metacognitive processing required to collaboratively solve the information problem, and on the IPS scores. MethodOn the basis of the literature, the prompts were embedded in the IPS process and aimed to support three steps of IPS: information search, information classification and information presentation. Such question prompts were expected to positively impact IPS scores related to each step, compared to a condition without prompt. Moreover, we assumed that the positive effects of question prompts would be mediated by the level of metacognitive processing they activated. An experimental study involving IPS partially conducted in dyads was conducted with two conditions (with prompts, n=12 and without prompts, n=14). ResultsResults partially confirmed the direct and mediated effects of question prompts, but only when oriented on the first step of information search. There were no effects of the question prompts orienting on the next steps of information classification and information presentation. ConclusionResults of this study shed light on the role of metacognition in IPS and allowed to suggest some instructional implications of question prompts to support the IPS process.