Metacognition - Components

Components

Metacognition is classified into three components:

1. Metacognitive knowledge (also called metacognitive awareness) is what individuals know about themselves and others as cognitive processors.
2. Metacognitive regulation is the regulation of cognition and learning experiences through a set of activities that help people control their learning.
3. Metacognitive experiences are those experiences that have something to do with the current, on-going cognitive endeavor.

Metacognition refers to a level of thinking that involves active control over the process of thinking that is used in learning situations. 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.

Metacognition includes at least three different types of metacognitive awareness when considering metacognitive knowledge:

1. Declarative Knowledge: refers to knowledge about oneself as a learner and about what factors can influence one's performance. Declarative knowledge can also be referred to as "world knowledge".
2. Procedural Knowledge: refers to knowledge about doing things. This type of knowledge is displayed as heuristics and strategies. A high degree of procedural knowledge can allow individuals to perform tasks more automatically. This is achieved through a large variety of strategies that can accessed more efficiently.
3. Conditional knowledge: refers to knowing when and why to use declarative and procedural knowledge. It allows students to allocate their resources when using strategies. This in turn allows the strategies to become more effective.

Similar to metacognitive knowledge, metacognitive regulation or the "regulation of cognition" contains three essential skills that are essential.

1. Planning: refers to the appropriate selection of strategies and the correct allocation of resources that affect task performance.
2. Monitoring: refers to one's awareness of comprehension and task performance
3. Evaluating: refers to appraising the final product of a task and the efficiency at which the task was performed. This can include re-evaluating strategies that were used.

Similarly, maintaining motivation to see a task to completion is also a metacognitive skill. The ability to become aware of distracting stimuli – both internal and external – and sustain effort over time also involves metacognitive or executive functions. The theory that metacognition has a critical role to play in successful learning means it is important that it be demonstrated by both students and teachers.

Students who demonstrate a wide range of metacognitive skills perform better on exams and complete work more efficiently. They are self-regulated learners who utilize the "right tool for the job" and modify learning strategies and skills based on their awareness of effectiveness. Individuals with a high level of metacognitive knowledge and skill identify blocks to learning as early as possible and change "tools" or strategies to ensure goal attainment. Swanson (1990) found that metacognitive knowledge can compensate for IQ and lack of prior knowledge when comparing fifth and sixth grade students' problem solving. Students with a high-metacognition were reported to have used fewer strategies, but solved problems more effectively than low-metacognition students, regardless of IQ or prior knowledge.

Metacognologists are aware of their own strengths and weaknesses, the nature of the task at hand, and available "tools" or skills. A broader repertoire of "tools" also assists in goal attainment. When "tools" are general, generic, and context independent, they are more likely to be useful in different types of learning situations.

Another distinction in metacognition is executive management and strategic knowledge. Executive management processes involve planning, monitoring, evaluating and revising one's own thinking processes and products. Strategic knowledge involves knowing what (factual or declarative knowledge), knowing when and why (conditional or contextual knowledge) and knowing how (procedural or methodological knowledge). Both executive management and strategic knowledge metacognition are needed to self-regulate one's own thinking and learning.

Finally, there is no distinction between domain-general and domain-specific metacognitive skills. This means that metacognitive skills are domain-general in nature and there are no specific skills for certain subject areas. The metacognitive skills that are used to review an essay are the same as those that are used to verify an answer to a math question.

Metacognitive experience is responsible for creating an identity that matters to an individual. The creation of the identity with meta-cognitive experience is linked to the identity-based motivation (IBM) model. The identity-based motivation model implies that "identities matter because they provide a basis for meaning making and for action." A person decides also if the identity matters in two ways with meta-cognitive experience. First, a current or possible identity is either "part of the self and so worth pursuing" or the individual thinks that the identity is part of their self, yet it is conflicting with more important identities and the individual will decide if the identity is or is not worth pursuing. Second, it also helps an individual decide if an identity should be pursued or abandoned.

The meta-cognitive experience is seen as ease or difficulty when deciding if the identity matters. Having these feelings depends on the question an individual asks themselves in conjunction with the feeling. Here is an example, if a person asks themselves is the identity important to them than the experienced difficulty would be seen as yes. The reason it would be considered yes is because they are working so hard on the identity because it is important. Now, if the person asks themselves if the identity is for them, the experienced difficulty is no because they linked their identity to ease which makes the feeling more truthful.

Usually, abandoning identity has been linked to meta-cognitive difficulty. Based on the identity-based motivation model there are naive theories describing difficulty as a way to continue to pursue an identity. The incremental theory of ability states that if "effort matters then difficulty is likely to be interpreted as meaning that more effort is needed." Here is an example, a woman who loves to play clarinet has come upon a hard piece. She knows that how much effort she puts into learning this piece is beneficial. The piece had difficulty so she knew the effort was needed. The identity the woman wants to pursue is to be a good clarinet player, having a metacognitive experience difficulty pushed her to learn the difficult piece to continue to identify with her identity. The entity theory of ability represents the opposite. This theory states that if "effort does not matter then difficulty is likely to be interpreted as meaning that ability is lacking so effort should be suspended." Based off the example of the woman playing the clarinet, if she did not want to identify herself as a good clarinet player, she would not have put in any effort to learn the difficult piece which is an example of using metacognitive experience difficulty to abandon an identity.