The Value of Metacognition and Reflectivity in Computer-Based Learning Environments

Background

The ideas of metacognition and reflectivity, though not formally titled, have been topics of interest and practice for millennia. In the Greco-Roman era, Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle all emphasized the importance of self-examination and its result: self-knowledge. During the middle ages, Thomas Aquinas developed a sophisticated theory of self-knowledge developed on a foundation of self-evaluation and self-awareness (Cory, 2013). The 20th century, however, ushered in a more refined understanding of self-examination and knowledge. William James, John Dewey, Lev Vygotsky, and Jean Piaget each contributed significant advances associated with a modern approach to metacognition and reflectivity (Dewey, 1910; Inhelder & Piaget, 1958; Fox & Riconscente, 2008). During the past few decades, metacognition and reflectivity have become common terms in educational psychology and specialized topics for research and discussion. While closely related, they have followed largely separate paths in formal research.

John Flavell first used the term metacognition in the mid 1970’s, indicating that it involves thinking about one’s own cognitive processes. He stated that metacognition involves two aspects: awareness and control of cognitive processes (Flavell, 1976). Later, Flavell (1979) proposed a model for metacognition based upon two areas: metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive experiences. Metacognitive knowledge describes what is known about the factors that affect cognition, and metacognitive experiences describe the way people make conscious efforts to improve learning. He further divided metacognitive knowledge into three categories:

• 1.

  Person Variables: One’s ability to identify their strengths and weaknesses in the learning process.

• 2.

  Task Variables: One’s ability to identify the cognitive processes required to complete a task. Example: A student estimates the time required to read a particular journal article.

• 3.

  Strategy Variables: One’s ability to identify the strategies that they must apply in order to accomplish a task. Example: A student determines they will need to use a dictionary to look up unfamiliar words to understand the content of a technical journal article.

The professional community has also recognized the importance of metamemory, the knowledge of one’s memory, as another component of metacognition (Cavanaugh & Perlmutter, 1982). More recently, Fogarty (1994) developed a three-stage framework to assist teachers in developing student metacognitive processing, which includes planning, monitoring, and evaluation. Currently, researchers recognize and study three major factors of metacognition (Dunlosky & Metcalfe, 2009). They are: