COMPARING METACOGNITIVE AWARENESS
IN STUDENTS ON THE FIRST AND SIXTH YEAR
OF MEDICAL FACULTY
P.1.J.017
Presented at the
29th ECNP Congress of
Applied and Translational
Neuroscience
Vienna, Austria
September 17-20, 2016
Pavle Nešović1 , Maja Simonović1
1
The Faculty of Medicine- University of Nis, Niš, Serbia.
BACKGROUND
RESULTS
Metacognition is knowledge about knowledge, thinking about
thinking or "cognition about cognition". Metacognition refers to a
level of thinking that involves active control over the process of
thinking that is used in learning situations. [1] Planning the way to
approach a learning task, monitoring comprehension, and evaluating
the progress towards the completion of a task: these are
skills that are metacognitive in their nature. [2]
Metacognition is classif ied into three
components: Metacognitive knowledge (also
called metacognitive awareness) is what
individuals know about themselves and
others as cognitive processors;
Metacognitive regulation is the
regulation of cognition and
learning experiences through a set
of activities that help people
control
their
learning;
Metacognitive experiences are
those experiences that have
something to do with the current,
on-going cognitive endeavor. [3]
Metacognitive
knowledge
includes declarative, procedural
and conditional knowledge, and
metacognitive regulation includes
planning, monitoring and evaluation.
Our aim was to determine how higher
education
affects
development
of
metacognitive skills.
Comparing the average we found a significant difference only in
planning (mean=4.825 SD=1.47 to mean=4.15 SD=1.61, p=0.03)
and information management strategies (mean=8.65 SD=1.16 to
mean=7.9 SD=1.65, p=0.01), where first year students on average
have outperformed sixth year students.
.
.
CONCLUSION
.
The level of education is not in direct
correlation with metacognition. A
slight decline in planning and
information management can even
point to the negative impact of
education on metacognitive
abilities. Our opinion is that
education is not likely to affect
the metacognition, and that the
f irst year students are probably
metacognitive better at start
(we took into account the
results on an faculty entrance
exam where f irst year
students have had much
better results). There is also
the possibility that pre and
post graduate depression
affects students at the last
years. We think it would be good
for students at the beginning and
during studies to point to strategies
for learning and mastering material.
.
.
.
First year
students
(mean)
SD
Sixth year
students
(mean)
SD
t-test
5.875
1.66
5.825
1.65
0.25
2.525
1.03
2.7
1.00
0.22
3.775
0.88
3.7
0.97
0.36
4.825
1.47
4.15
1.61
0.03
8.65
1.16
7.9
1.65
0.01
4.6
0.99
4.075
1.08
0.14
Comprehension
monitoring
5.125
1.30
5
1.26
0.33
Evaluation
4.35
1.37
4.375
1.35
0.5
groups
Declarative
knowledge
Procedural
knowledge
Conditional
knowledge
Planning
Information
managemant
strategies
Debbuging
strategies
METHODS
We have compared metacognitive abilities of students on the first
and sixth year of Medical faculty in Nis. We have covered 40
students in first and 40 in the sixth year, regardless of gender or age.
We used the survey "metacognitive awareness inventory". [4] The
survey consists of 52 questions that are answered with true or false
and which are grouped into 8 groups that resemble parts that
include in metacognitive knowledge and regulation, and those are:
declarative knowledge, procedural knowledge, conditional
knowledge, planning, information management strategies,
debugging strategies, comprehension monitoring and evaluation.
We compared the average number of positive responses by group,
we compared the groups with the t-test and with the number of
positive answers that most students gave (), and the answers by the
groups.
.
.
Copyright © 2016 Pavle Nešović, [email protected]
References
[1] Metcalfe, J., Shimamura, A. P. 1994 Knowing about knowing.
Metacognition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
[2] Rosen, L. D., Lim, A. F., Carrier, L. M., Cheever, N. A. 2011 An
empirical examination of the educational impact of
message-induced task switching in the classroom. Educational
implications and strategies to enhance learning. Psicología Educativa
17(2), 163-177.
[3] Flavell, J.H. 1979 Metacognition and cognitive monitoring. A new
area of cognitive-development inquiry. American Psychologist 34
(10), 906–911.
[4] Schraw, G., Dennison, R.S. 1994 Metacognition awerness
inventory. Assessing metacognitive awareness.
Contemporary
Educational Psychology 19, 460-475.