Metacognition can be defined as an awareness and understanding of a person’s thought processes. In education, metacognition is the ability to think about one’s own learning, Playing a critical role in effective teaching and learning.
By helping students become more aware of their learning processes and strategies, metacognitive pedagogy can enhance academic performance and promote self-directed learning. Teaching practices that promote metacognition shares many similarities with those of Academic Mentorship.
Academic Mentorship is a form of private tutoring that can be a powerful tool for promoting metacognitive development among A Level, Undergraduate and Master’s students, as they make the transition into ever more challenging academic realms.
Using a combination of pastoral, holistic and academic approaches, academic mentors support and guide a student’s understanding of critical and intentional thinking approaches to their studies. Read our guide on Academic mentorship.
What research suggests
The Education Endowment Foundation (EEF) is an independent charity, supporting educational institutions in helping reduce the trend between family income and attainment.
The EEFs’ work specifically aims at distilling the myriad of studies and research into concrete strategies and tactics for excellent teaching practice.
It has produced extensive guidance for teachers on how to promote metacognition in the classroom. The guidance recommends a range of teaching strategies, including modelling, explicit instruction, questioning, and peer-to-peer learning.
These strategies are designed to help students become more aware of their own learning processes, and to develop the skills and strategies they need to learn effectively.
Recent studies have provided strong evidence to support the effectiveness of metacognitive pedagogy.
A meta-analysis conducted by the EEF found that teaching metacognitive strategies had a positive impact on students’ academic performance across a range of subjects and age groups, claiming that metacognitive strategies “can be worth the equivalent of an additional +7 months’ progress when used well.”
Other studies have shown that metacognitive strategies can be particularly effective for students who are from disadvantaged backgrounds, or struggling academically, be it in their mandatory GCSEs, or their undergraduate modules at top universities.
Peer tutoring
In recent years, several studies have highlighted the benefits of metacognitive pedagogy for student achievement. Recent studies have explored the potential benefits of using metacognitive pedagogy within the context of academic mentoring in university.
For example, Backer and colleagues (2011) investigated the impact of reciprocal peer tutoring on higher education students’ metacognitive knowledge and regulation.
The study found that students who participated in peer tutoring showed improved metacognitive regulation skills, including self-evaluation and planning.
In institutions in which peer tuition can be difficult to carry out, the role of an academic mentor, as both as an experienced alumnus and professional tutor, can be a peer, developing and modelling their own study skills, research and articulate their learning processes alongside the student in tailored tutorials.
To learn more on Academic mentors, read our Academic mentorship Q&A with Gabbitas’ Director of School Placements and Higher education.
English Language Development
Another study by Al-Jarrah and colleagues (2018) investigated the attitudes of ‘English as a Foreign Language’ (EFL) students when using metacognitive strategies in their writing. Download their study here.
This study found that students who received explicit instruction in metacognitive strategies demonstrated greater motivation and engagement in their writing, as well as improved writing skills. This is particularly pertinent for students coming to the UK to study.
English is the global lingua-franca for business, international relations, research and the arts. Having a native, bilingual or fluent mentor upon whom a student can lean on to check the nuances of English for Academic Purposes, is hugely beneficial and provides that ‘edge’ in essays and dissertations.
Enhancing Performance, Engagement and Motivation
Dunn and Mulvenon (2009) examined much of the research on the impact of metacognitive instruction on students’ ability.
For solving maths problems, they report that students who received explicit instruction in metacognitive strategies performed significantly better on problem-solving tasks than students who did not receive this instruction.
Perhaps students who articulated the thoughts in approaching difficult problems triggered verbal memory to recollect previous similar problems? The research concluded that “metacognitive instruction is a powerful tool for enhancing student learning in mathematics.”
In addition to improving academic performance, metacognitive pedagogy has also been shown to enhance students’ motivation and engagement.
A study by Yan and colleagues (2018) found that metacognitive instruction increased students’ intrinsic motivation to learn and their confidence in their ability to learn.
The researchers noted that “metacognitive strategies can help students feel more in control of their learning, which can lead to increased motivation and engagement.”
Practical Applications of Metacognition
Real studies have provided compelling evidence to support the effectiveness of metacognitive pedagogy for enhancing student achievement, motivation, and engagement.
Mentorship can be a powerful vessel for exploring metacognition in learners, providing the scaffolding for a student to implement this ‘thinking about thinking’ into a student’s learning process.
By analysing a student’s unique learning methods, and drawing upon a wealth of experience in tuition and academic study, Gabbitas Academic Mentors will provide tailored guidance and support to help students develop the skills and strategies they need to become self-directed learners and achieve their academic goals. Enquire to speak to our mentors and tutors here.
To find out more on how specific metacognitive strategies tailored to an individual student can help their learning in exponential ways, email our experts info@gabbitas.com, or call +44 (0) 203 026 7443.
This article was written by Gabbitas’ Head of Tuition, Johnny Reynolds, and is part of Gabbitas, a section providing in-depth, first-hand coverage of the UK education landscape and global market trends.
