Metacognitive Questions Research Articles

Faculty Members versus Teaching Assistants as Problem-Based Learning (PBL) Facilitators: Medical Students’ Perception

Problem-Based Learning (PBL) is a student-centered pedagogy that depends on the principle of using real life problems as a trigger for the acquisition and integration of new knowledge through the problem-solving skills and experiences. The PBL allows medical students to develop important skills and attributes. Among the pillars of successful PBL implementation is the ‘class tutor’. The PBL tutor is known as the guide or mentor for the students. Tutors prompt students with metacognitive questions and provide direction without directly telling the student what to look for and where to go for information. The aim of the study was to compare the performance of faculty members and teaching assistants in facilitating PBL sessions from the students' points of view. A comparative, cross-sectional study was conducted on ISNC medical students who attended PBL sessions with both faculty members and teaching assistants in various integrated modules. A questionnaire designed by the researchers and transformed into an online survey (through Google Forms) has been used for data collection. The descriptive statistics have been used and a p-value < 0.05 was considered as statistically significant. A total of 348 medical students responded to the questionnaire. The data collection tool was based on a questionnaire that was analyzed for its validity and reliability and showed a high validity reflected by KMO and Barlett‘s test of Sphericity with a value of 0.908 (p < 0.000) and high reliability reflected by Cronbach‘s alpha with a value of 0.928. The study participants reported that 63.5% and 79.6% of faculty members and teaching assistants, respectively, had sufficient to high performance, while 36.5% and 20.4% of faculty members and teaching assistants, respectively, had a poor or insufficient performance. No association was found between students’ perception of the facilitation performance of faculty members &teaching assistants and their demographic data. The perception of the medical students of the PBL facilitation skills of teaching assistants was more positive than the skills of faculty members. Teaching assistants are suitable PBL facilitators probably because they have a better understanding of students’ needs than faculty members, being closer to them in age or their recent experience as undergraduate medical students.

Teacher Metacognitions About Identities: Case Studies of Four Expert Language Teachers in China

Despite a surge of research interest in teacher identity in both TESOL and general education, there is a lack of attention to the role of metacognition in language teachers’ identity (re)construction. Informed by the integrated framework of metacognitions comprising metacognitive knowledge, strategies, and experiences, this article reports on four expert language teachers’ metacognitions about identities and how such metacognitions influenced their identity work in China. The findings demonstrate four major types of metacognitive experiences: (1) ascertaining, prioritizing, and claiming existing identities; (2) imagining, planning, and constructing new identities; (3) crafting a fluid and interconnected identity web; and (4) engaging in distributed identity construction. While engaging in such metacognitive experiences, the participants also drew on various forms of metacognitive knowledge (e.g., their knowledge about strategies, tasks, and themselves) and strategies (e.g., asking metacognitive questions, making explicit identity claims) in their identity (re)construction. The study adds to the current teacher identity literature by highlighting the critical role of metacognitions in guiding language teachers to manage, regulate, and distribute their identities. Practical implications for language teaching and teacher education are provided.

Tutor facilitation in a PBL writing classroom through face-to-face group interactions

Proficiency in writing in English has been a very important skill for undergraduates especially English as second language learners (ESL). However, it is the most challenging language skill to be acquired by the students not only in second (L2) or foreign language (FL) but also in the first language (L1). This is due to its complexity. Some scholars describe writing as a cognitive and social process. Various studies have been conducted on how to improve students’ writing skills. It is shown that supporting students in a writing process enhances their writing skills. For example, teachers are expected to give cognitive and social supports to students to allow them to improve their writing. This study reveals the strategies used by tutors in facilitating students’ writing process in a problem-based learning environment (PBL) through face-to-face group interactions. is one of the social media platforms found interesting and used by most of the students to interact with one another in and out of the school environment. It is used to provide social support to the students. An intact class of 18 second-year students in an English Composition course in Nigeria was selected in the study. The students were provided with a guide by tutors during the PBL writing process. Two tutors facilitated the students’ writing process in the PBL process. Tutor facilitation is one of the major components that facilitate meaningful learning in PBL. This is because, without proper guidance, students would end up in unfocused learning. Data were obtained through audio- and video-recording of students’ face-to-face interactions chats. The findings showed that the PBL tutors used various strategies to facilitate the participants’ writing such as open-ended questioning, metacognitive questioning, pushing students for an explanation, revoicing, summarizing, and generating/evaluating hypotheses. The support provided by the tutors helped the students to improve their writing. The findings of the study suggest some ways for teachers to improve students writing skills.

Metacognitive therapy for mathematics disorder

Mathematical disorders are learning disabilities that greatly affect a person’s mathematical abilities so that they need to be recognized as early as possible. This aims to minimize the negative impacts caused by mathematics disorder. This study is a descriptive qualitative research. The participants of this study were two university students of the department of mathematics education, Universitas Islam Malang. This paper describes Metacognitive therapy (MCT) for students who have mathematics disorder. MCT therapy is done by asking metacognitive questions which consist of comprehension, connection, strategic, and reflection questions. The purpose of MCT is to find out what students believe about their own thoughts and how their thoughts work about mathematics, then show students how this belief leads to an unsupported response to thoughts that inadvertently prolong or worsen symptoms, and ultimately give way alternative response to the mind to allow for symptom reduction. Need to be further investigated whether the results of metacognitive therapy are only temporary or not.

Building Learning Path of Mathematical Creative Thinking of Junior Students on Geometry Topics by Implementing Metacognitive Approach

Mathematical creative ability is one of the most important skills students must have to process the information provided in resolving the problem. Before using mathematical creative skills, prior knowledge becomes the most crucial thing that allows students to connect all existing information so that they can construct new knowledge through assimilation or accommodation processes. The process of forming mathematical concepts with metacognitive questions that might be carried out by students causes a metacognitive process in students that will affect their mathematical behavior. &#x0D; The purpose of this study is to (1) analyze prior knowledge of what students miss or forget so that they have difficulty to answer the given geometry problem, (2) how the learning path of creative thinking of students with the application of metacognitive approach. This type of research is Design Research to improve the quality of learning. This type of research is research design, data collection techniques .The researcher gave 2 geometry questions to 38 8th graders selected randomly in SMP Medan city. Questions given are tailored to Cognitive level 4 (C4) for questions 1 and C5 for question 2 based on Bloom's taxonomy. Data analysis techniques are descriptive qualitative.This study shows that prior knowledge becomes important to build students' mathematical creative ability to gain new knowledge, especially in the field of geometry. The most problematic topics that make it difficult for them to understand geometry are the area of the rectangle and the cube webs. In dividing the rectangle into two equal parts, students still have not created another form of flat build or have not been able to get out of the rectangular pattern or exactly the same as the available problem.&#x0D; There are five phases of learning trajectory of hierarchically creative mathematical thinking, which is orientation to problem, problem solving plan, plan realization, previous knowledge mastery / concept of mathematical creativity and evaluation of result obtained. Students do metacognition on the learning path of creative thinking in a comprehensive way from evaluation to planning, action to the formation of prior knowledge and selection of creative ideas. From these explanations, it is important that teachers need to ensure students have enough prior knowledge to make it easier to construct new knowledge, as well as to make learning fun and meaningful so that students will remember knowledge in long-term memory.

The value of fixed versus faded self-regulatory scaffolds on fourth graders’ mathematical problem solving

Research has indicated that students can be taught self-regulated learning (SRL) in scaffolding programs focusing on a fixed continuous practice (e.g., metacognitive question prompts). However, the fading role of scaffolding to prepare autonomous learning is often an overlooked component. A unique approach for fading is suggested that offers a graduated reduction model of scaffolding prompts according to the SRL phases involved in the solution, which allows assimilation of processes to prepare learners for autonomous activity. This quasi-experimental study of fourth-graders (n = 134) examines the effectiveness of metacognitive self-question prompts in a Fixed (continuous) versus Faded (graduated reduction) scaffolds model during planning, monitoring and reflection phases, on the facilitation of students’ SRL (metacognition, calibration of confidence judgment, motivation), and sense making of mathematical problem solving at the end of the program (short-term effect) and 3 months later (long-term/lasting effect). Findings indicated that the Faded Group performed best in the metacognition knowledge aspect, motivation in the performance goal approach increased and, in the avoidance, goal decreased. No differences were found between the groups on the regulation aspect and calibration of confidence judgment in the solution success. Additionally, the Faded Group outperformed the Fixed Group on sense making of problem solving. These findings were manifested particularly in the long-term effect. The study supports theoretical claims relating the role of fading scaffolds to increase students’ autonomous SRL (metacognition, motivation) and improvements in sense making, particularly on the long-term retention effect.

Differences between EFL Beginners and Intermediate Level Readers When Reading Onscreen Narrative Text with Pictures: A Study of Eye Movements as a Guide to Personalization

ABSTRACTCompared to reading text alone, pictures are regarded as easier for readers to comprehend the context. For EFL readers, their reading behavior on text with pictures needs to be carefully inspected. The study aims to examine how different are the viewing behaviors of EFL beginners versus intermediate readers on reading narrative paragraphs and accompanying pictures. Seventeen junior high and twenty-one senior high students represented as EFL beginners and intermediate readers, respectively. Both of them read consecutively three screens with narrative texts and pictures illustrating the texts. The results showed that both beginners and intermediate readers paid more attention to the texts than the pictures. The beginners almost solely fixated on the texts and few fixations fell on to the pictures while the intermediates had more fixations on both texts and pictures. The eye-movement data in the specific AOIs showed that the intermediates made more references between text and pictures when they encountered difficult words or processed semantic meaning making. The beginners were less efficient in reading, having less fixated time on each screen, and encountered greater difficulties in comprehension than the intermediates. Based on eye-movement data, a personalized strategy to alter display sequence could be provided to support EFL beginners: Before going into narrative reading, a reminding message could be dispatched onscreen guiding them to view standalone pictures and to inspect pictorial components carefully to serve as the macro-reading strategy. The personalization could also be realized by posting cognitive and meta-cognitive level questions during the inspection of picture.

Enhancing physics learning with cognitively activating instruction: A quasi-experimental classroom intervention study.

Physics educators today face two major challenges: supporting the acquisition of a solid base of conceptual knowledge and reducing the persisting gender gap. In the present quasi-experimental study, we investigated the potential of physics instruction that is enriched with evidence-based cognitively activating methods, such as inventing with contrasting cases or metacognitive questions, to overcome both of these challenges. Four physics teachers in charge of two parallel classes each applied our cognitively activating instruction in one of their classes (CogAct classes). The other classes received regular physics lessons (regular classes) on the same content. The sample consisted of 172 individuals from the advanced track of Swiss secondary school. Controlling for several individual student variables, CogAct classes (N = 87) outperformed regular classes (N = 85) in conceptual understanding at posttest (p 75) particularly benefited from CogAct instruction, as indicated by descriptive statistics and the interaction between intelligence and condition in the group of the female students for posttest conceptual understanding (p < .05, β = 0.88, 95% CI [0.06, 1.69]). We conclude that teachers can successfully be supported in implementing cognitively activating methods that improve their students’ conceptual understanding and reduce the gender gap in physics. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved)

Promoting Students’ Motivation and Use of SRL Strategies in the Web-Based Mathematics Learning Environment

Compared with classroom learning, online learning requires students to self-regulate their learning processes and to maintain their motivation to achieve their learning goals. This study investigated whether the interventions based on the Attention, Relevance, Confidence, and Satisfaction model and the modified Introducing the new concepts, Metacognitive questioning, Practicing, Reviewing and reducing difficulties, Obtaining mastery, Verification, and Enrichment method can promote students’ motivation and use of self-regulated learning (SRL) strategies in a web-based mathematics learning environment. Two-hundred thirty-six Chinese high school students were randomly divided into four groups: motivational design group, SRL intervention group, motivational design and SRL intervention group, and the control group. Questionnaires and tests were administered to measure the changes in motivation, use of SRL strategies, and academic gains before and after the respective interventions. Findings of this study suggest that the knowledge gain of students learning mathematics online can be maximized when they receive instructional assistance in both motivation and use of SRL strategies.

Experience with implementing pyramid examinations in an elective pharmacy course

Background and purposeThis article describes the implementation of pyramid tests, an assessment strategy that utilizes individual and cooperative testing for formal examinations in an elective course for third year pharmacy students. This strategy provides individual accountability and uses group collaboration to extend students depth of thinking through essay responses. Pyramid tests have been suggested as a way to improve grading efficiency compared to traditional tests that use essay questions. Educational activity and settingA two-credit hour pharmacy elective taught by synchronous video conferencing on two campuses of a large public university utilized pyramid tests for both the midterm and final examinations. Each examination had individual and group components and utilized a simple metacognitive question. FindingsThe averages from the individual portions of the pyramid tests were similar to the prior year, while the combined group (2/3 weight) and individual (1/3 weight) pyramid test scores averages were slightly higher than the previous year's average (87% compared to 86%, respectively). Student feedback on this assessment technique was generally positive. SummaryThis assessment strategy was an efficient way to test students’ knowledge. Although it had a collaborative component, it also provided individual accountability. Time spent on course administration and grading was similar to previous years that employed fixed choice assessments without collaborative work.

문제 해결과 메타인지가 학생들이 만드는 문제 유형에 미치는 영향

This study investigated the effects of math problem-solving and metacognition on the problem-posing type of students. Middle school students were asked to solve real-life problems and mathematical problems, and also to answer metacognitive questions before/after solving the suggested problems. And they were asked to create new problems with the solving method similar to the suggested problems. The results are followings. First, there were no such characteristics of problem-posing type in accordance with the problem-solving level. Second, in accordance with the type of given problems, there were differences in students' problem-posing. In case that students fully understood problems as the structure of the given problems was clear even though they were real-life problems unfamiliar with students, they were able to create diverse types of problems. Finally, through the metacognitive questions before/after problem-solving, students could think of conditions for solving the suggested problems. Such students with the high level of metacognitive knowledge created more similar problems in the problem-posing activity.

How do open-ended problems promote mathematical creativity? A reflection of bare mathematics problem and contextual problem

Creativity is often seen as one of the fundamental aspects of character education. As one of the 21st century skills, creativity has also been considered as an important goal of education across the world. This paper reports a study on promoting mathematical creativity through the use of open-ended mathematics problems. A total of 53 undergraduate students participated in the study. These students worked on open-ended problems in two types, i.e. bare mathematics problem and contextual problem. The contextual problem was presented in the form of paper-based and Geogebra-based. The students’ works were analysed qualitatively in order to describe how students’ mathematical creativity developed. It was found that the open-ended problems successfully promote students’ creativity as indicated by various solutions or strategies that were used by students to solve the problems. The analysis of students’ works show that students’ creativity developed through three kinds of exploration, i. e. (1) exploration of contexts, (2) exploration of software features, and (3) exploration of mathematics concepts. The use of metacognitive questioning was found to be helpful to develop the first two explorations into mathematical exploration.

Religious-Thinking-Through Using Bibliodrama: An Empirical Study of Student Learning in Classroom Teaching

ABSTRACTSearching for new methods to start a genuine dialogue in secondary school classrooms, bibliodrama as an active form of putting religious stories in action was used. The research focused on examining relationships between student learning activities and teacher behavior; six lessons were analyzed in a qualitative cross-case analysis. A dialogue in the classroom aims to evoke theologizing by the students, also to be called religious-thinking-through. The effectiveness of religious-thinking-through was operationalized into three learning activities (testing positions, producing criticism, and reflecting) and six teaching scaffolds, building stones used by teachers to gear active learning. A quantitative correspondence analysis yielded a scale that contrasts more from less effective lessons. The specific contribution of an effective religion teacher is to show understanding, give space and listen. When he asks meta-cognitive questions in a debating way of connective truth finding this leads to a higher level of religious-thinking-through by students.

QUANDO AS CRIANÇAS ARGUMENTAM: A CONSTRUÇÃO DISCURSIVA DO USO DE EVIDÊNCIAS EM AULAS INVESTIGATIVAS DE CIÊNCIAS

O objetivo do presente estudo é analisar a construção discursiva de práticas de uso de evidências durante argumentação em aulas de ciências em uma turma do 3° ano do Ensino Fundamental. Selecionamos um evento considerado telling case para análise de interações face a face. Buscamos nos apropriar de elementos da perspectiva etnográfica em educação e pressupostos da Teoria Pragma-dialética da Argumentação para desenvolver as análises. Nossos resultados indicam que a argumentação do grupo foi organizada em torno de dois focos; o primeiro, gerado por discordâncias relacionadas a questões mais diretivas, demandavam a apresentação de pontos de vista e argumentos/evidências; o segundo, gerado por discordâncias relacionadas a questões de teor metacognitivo, originou discussões em torno do uso de evidências. Além disso, indicamos a complexidade do processo de relacionar evidências a uma determinada conclusão, explorando uma interação na qual pontos de vista contrários foram sustentados pelas mesmas observações. Dialogamos com outras pesquisas em argumentação no contexto dos Anos Iniciais do Ensino Fundamental e sugerimos implicações para a prática pedagógica e para pesquisa em Educação em Ciências.

The Effect of Metacognitive Strategies on Prospective Teachers’ Metacognitive Awareness and Self Efficacy Belief

The purpose of the research study was to investigate the effects of the metacognitive strategies used in the course Science and Technology Instruction-II on prospective teachers’ metacognitive awareness, science teaching self efficacy belief and teacher self efficacy belief. The research group was composed of 87 third grade students from the Primary Education Department at the Faculty of Education at Cumhuriyet University in Sivas, Turkey. Experimental method with pre-test and post-test control group was used in the study. Metacognitive Awareness Inventory, Science Teaching Efficacy Beliefs Inventory-B (STEBI-B) and Teacher Self Efficacy Beliefs Inventory were utilized as pre-test and post-test. Journals and metacognitive questions were used in experimental group training. The research findings indicated that metacognitive strategies increased the prospective teachers’ metacognitive awareness and teacher self efficacy belief but they did not increase students’ science teaching self efficacy belief so much as to constitute a significant difference between the pre-test.

Effects of Physical Manipulative Instructions with or without Explicit Metacognitive Questions on Geometrical Knowledge Acquisition

In this study, effects of 2 physical manipulative instructions on students’ geometrical knowledge acquisition were compared. Geometry topics’ presentation was conducted via using physical manipulative and the practice stage in two different forms: (1) practice consisting of problems supported with explicit metacognitive questions and (2) practice consisting of problems not supported with explicit metacognitive questions. Participants were 220 6th grade students, studying in 5 classrooms. Students’ knowledge acquisitions were tested by administering knowledge tests before and after the instruction. Furthermore, follow-up interviews were conducted with randomly selected students according to their achievement levels to get their views about the effect of manipulative instruction on their geometrical knowledge acquisition. The results indicated that the two instructions were equally effective in promoting geometrical knowledge acquisition. Metacognitive questions together with manipulative use and group work seemed to help partly students’ knowledge acquisition. Hence, active involvement, both physically and cognitively, seemed to play a crucial role.

Classification of end-of-chapter questions in senior school chemistry textbooks used in Nigeria

Textbooks are a prominent part of science teaching and learning. For science teachers and students, textbooks are the major source of information for planning and classroom practice. In addition to the content of textbooks, are end-of-chapter questions that should consolidate students learning and enhance their thinking processes. Therefore, this study adopted the framework of the revised Bloom’s Taxonomy to classify and analyze end-of-chapter questions from three chemistry textbooks used in Nigeria. The results from this study indicated that majority (76%) of the questions were at the lower order of (understand, remember, and apply), while 46% and 32% measure conceptual and procedural knowledge respectively. The results further revealed that the number of questions in the categories of evaluate and create differs significantly at, F (5, 1744) = 5.61, ρ < .01, from the other categories of the cognitive process skills. The following conclusions were drawn: understand and analyze categories recorded the highest number questions in the cognitive objectives; and there was no metacognitive questions. Implications for textbook authors and teachers were discussed.

Cognitive Literary Studies and the Status of Interpretation: An Attempt at Conceptual Mapping

What is the role of interpretation—the close reading of individual texts—in cognitive literary studies? In attempting to come to grips with this vexed question, my article focuses on the complex divides that separate the practice of interpretation from cognitive-scientific research. I argue that cognitive literary studies can only fulfill their potential by moving beyond interpretation, and I survey lines of research that have already put into practice this intuition. Secondly, I explore a heuristic use of interpretation, where insights from cognitive science are leveraged—in what I call a “cognitive thematics”—to illuminate a background of metacognitive questions.

Enhancing Mathematics Achievement of Elementary School Students through Homework Assignments Enriched with Metacognitive Questions

Background:This study investigates the effect of homework assignments enriched with metacognitive questions on students’ mathematics achievement and homework behaviors.Materials and methods:A quasi-experimental design with pre- and post-test measures and two groups (experimental and control) was employed to investigate the effect of the enriched homework. Forty-four students participated in the study. Data were obtained through the Mathematics Homework Behaviors Scale. First semester mathematics scores taken from students’ report cards were used as a pre-test of mathematics achievement; the mean of second and third examination scores were used as a post-test.Results:The results revealed a significant difference between the mathematics scores of students in the experimental and the control groups. No significant differences were found between the homework behavior scores of the experimental group and the control group.Conclusions:The results were thought to be useful for mathematics teachers.

Metacognitive Based-Instructional Theory Proposal into a Writing- Down Protocol to Measure Learners’ Paraphrasing Sub-category Beyond a Multiple-Choice Format

&lt;p align="justify"&gt;Este artículo se deriva de un estudio cualitativo de casos múltiples realizado en la Licenciatura en Educación Básica énfasis en Humanidades-Inglés de la Universidad de Córdoba, Colombia. Los participantes fueron un grupo de caso y uno comparativo de la clase de Comunicación, de sexto semestre. Ambos grupos se seleccionaron según unos criterios comparativos. Una prueba diagnóstica y otra postest de comprensión lectora en inglés se aplicaron para analizar, comparar y contrastar los resultados de la subcategoría literal de paráfrasis en las fases de preintervención e intervención. En el protocolo de escritura se incluyó el programa de intervención, en el cual se aplicó una teoría instruccional basada en tres preguntas metacognitivas para ilustrar el proceso de comprensión lectora. Las tres preguntas metacognitivas forman parte de una interpretación procedimental del conocimiento metacognitivo propuesto por Flavell: “conocimiento declarativo (¿qué?), conocimiento procedimental (¿cómo?) y conocimiento condicional (¿por qué?)”.&lt;/p&gt;