“It is at least conceivable that the ideas currently brewing in this area could someday be parlayed into a method of teaching children (and adults) to make wise and thoughtful life decisions as well as to comprehend and learn better in formal education settings.” (J. H. Flavell, 1979, p.910).
I think a useful start for thinking about metacognition, is to commence by working out what metacognition is. We can begin this by breaking the term down into its component parts.
At the centre of all educational learning is cognition. “Cognition” is the intellectual process of knowing, or thinking and it uses different functions, such as searching, monitoring and rehearsing (Winne, 1985, 2011). The word originates from the Latin term, cognoscere, which means “getting to know.” The prefix “meta” comes from Ancient Greek, with meanings that include, “after, behind, beyond and about.” In the context of the term metacognition, the prefix “meta” denotes “about. This is why metacognition is often simply described as “thinking about thinking.”
One of the reasons this definition works so well is that it’s a solid foundation to work with. Were we to dig a bit deeper, though, the research suggests that classifying the term “metacognition” is a bit more complex than this and there is (to date) no definition of metacognition that is universally used, or agreed upon by researchers. A literature review of metacognition (Akturk and Sahin, 2011) concluded that metacognition was a nebulous concept, difficult to pin down to a simple definition. This is in part because different researchers have different perspectives about what it includes. For example, do self-regulation and goal setting form part of metacognition, or are they separate? As part of my research, I have developed a new process model as a way of trying to answer these questions and link it to my developing understanding of the term.
Yet, before we start tumble too far down the rabbit hole, I think we can definitely find a more nuanced way of defining metacognition that builds on the concept of it as “thinking about thinking.” To do this, I’m going to borrow from Hacker (1998) who refers to it as a process of recognising, understanding, monitoring and evaluating one’s own thinking. It’s not perfect, but it’s a start, and should you disagree with it… well that puts you in the esteemed company of a number of metacognitive theorists!
References
Akturk, A. O., & Sahin, I. (2011). Literature review on metacognition and its measurement. Procedia-Social and Behavioral Sciences, 15, 3731-3736.
Flavell, J. H. (1979). Metacognition and cognitive monitoring: A new area of cognitive–developmental inquiry. American psychologist, 34(10), 906.
Hacker, D. J., Dunlosky, J., & Graesser, A. C. (1998). Metacognition in educational theory and practice: Routledge.
Winne, P. H. (1985). Steps toward promoting cognitive achievements. The Elementary School Journal, 85(5), 673-693.
Further reading:
Metacognition and Self-regulated Learning | Education Endowment Foundation | EEF
What does teaching metacognitively look like? | Funky Pedagogy
Metacognitively 