Undergraduate chemistry instructors’ perspectives on their students’ metacognitive development
Amber
Heidbrink
and
Melissa
Weinrich
*
Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, Colorado 80639, USA. E-mail: Melissa.Weinrich@unco.edu
First published on 12th October 2020
Abstract
Metacognition is an important skill for undergraduate chemistry students, but there has been scant research investigating chemistry instructors’ perspectives of metacognition and the development of their students’ metacognition. Since undergraduate instructors have a wide influence over what happens in their courses, it is crucial to investigate their understanding of metacognition, and discern whether they value metacognitive development for their students. This qualitative interview study explored the perspectives of seventeen chemistry instructors who taught chemistry at the college level from six different institutions across Colorado. The interviews were coded deductively according to Zohar and Dori's definitions of metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive skills, and inductively for themes through reflexive thematic analysis. These interviews provided a window into these instructors’ personal pedagogical content knowledge (pPCK) and how it influenced their enacted pedagogical content knowledge (ePCK) in relation to their students’ metacognition development. The results include a discussion of how these chemistry instructors valued their students’ metacognition, how they currently develop their students’ metacognition, and their suggestions for improving the development of metacognition in undergraduate chemistry education. Based on the results of this analysis, activities that indirectly target students’ metacognition may be more easily adopted by instructors, and more explicit awareness may be beneficial.
Introduction
Many instructors have had students come to them after an exam, baffled by how poorly they performed. Students in this situation frequently believe they studied as much as humanly possible; often studying for a long time without questioning how efficiently they study. Kruger and Dunning (1999) found that many low-scoring students lack an awareness of their level of competence in a variety of areas. From their results, Kruger and Dunning claimed that these “incompetent” students lacked the declarative knowledge—an aspect of metacognitive knowledge—to discern what material they did not understand. There is evidence of this Kruger–Dunning effect in chemistry education (Rickey and Stacy, 2000; Bell and Volckmann, 2011; Mathabathe and Potgeiter, 2014; Pazicni and Bauer, 2014; Hawker et al., 2016; Casselman and Atwood, 2017). Because of this evidence of chemistry students also lacking an awareness of their knowledge, metacognition is a relevant concept to students learning chemistry. Additionally, the choices we make as instructors can guide students in developing their metacognition through metacognitive training activities (Casselman and Atwood, 2017).Chemistry education researchers have found that low-scoring students tend to have a lower awareness of their knowledge, but they can improve their awareness with training. Pazicni and Bauer (2014) and Hawker et al. (2016) found that general chemistry students in the C–D grade range were much less accurate and more likely to overestimate their exam scores than students in the A–B grade range, who were more likely to underestimate their scores, and that students’ awareness of their knowledge was consistent throughout the semester. Casselman and Atwood (2017) found that with metacognitive training, students in the C–D range improved their ability to accurately predict their test scores and improved their test scores by 10% compared to a control section. Kelly (2014) also worked with general chemistry students, and in her study, which focused on these students’ understanding of molecular visualizations, she found that the students who lacked metacognitive skills had difficulty evaluating their own understanding. González and Paoloni (2015) found that students’ metacognitive strategies in problem-solving positively predicted students’ performance in a chemistry course. Adadan (2019) found that preservice teachers with high metacognitive awareness outperformed preservice teachers with low metacognitive awareness after being instructed about gas behavior. Additionally, methods have been developed to characterize and measure students’ metacognitive abilities (Cooper and Sandi-Urena, 2009; Sinapuelas and Stacy, 2015) and to inform students about metacognition or to promote students’ metacognitive development (Blank, 2000; Sandi-Urena et al., 2012; Cook et al., 2013; Thomas, 2017; Yuriev et al., 2017; Visser and Flynn, 2018; Graham et al., 2019; Swamy and Bartman, 2019; Mutambuki et al., 2020).
This is only a sample of the many studies in chemistry education research (CER) that have focused on chemistry students’ metacognition. Despite the research and data available about students, there is a gap in the literature of studies focused on chemistry instructors, and their perspectives of metacognition, or its importance and relevance in the undergraduate chemistry classroom. Beck and Blumer (2016) conducted a survey study of undergraduate biology laboratory instructors, in which one of their five constructs included metacognition. While not a focus of their study, they labeled three of their 30 items as involving metacognition (i.e. “I can describe what I was supposed to learn”). They found that students said they had these experiences more often in the course than the professors thought the students did. While developing a new problem-based laboratory curriculum, Sandi-Urena et al. (2011) interviewed the teaching assistants (TA's) to understand their experience with the new curriculum. They found that the problem-based structure of the new curriculum encouraged the teaching assistants to think more creatively, and this helped the TA's to also be more creative in their research. The new curriculum also challenged the TA's previously held epistemologies, which Sandi-Urena and his team believed caused the TA's to have a metacognitive experience. From this, they concluded that the new curriculum not only benefited the graduate students by encouraging their creativity, but it also developed their metacognition. Often, chemistry instruction is not designed to develop students’ metacognitive abilities (Thomas and Anderson, 2014). However, instructors have a large influence over what is presented in their courses and in turn learned by students. Since metacognitive skills may aid students in learning chemistry, and instructors’ choices guide what is learned by students, it is important to understand instructors’ perspectives on metacognition in their courses. To address the lack of research on instructors, we designed this study to explore chemistry instructors’ perspectives of metacognition in their courses.
Theoretical framework
Zohar and Dori's (2012) definition and description of metacognition framed this study. Metacognition is frequently described as “thinking about your thinking”. In this framework, built upon prior work (i.e.Flavell 1979; Schraw and Dennison 1994), metacognition is differentiated into two main ways to think about thinking: knowledge of one's knowledge (metacognitive knowledge) and regulation of knowledge (metacognitive skills). Metacognitive knowledge has three main subtypes: declarative knowledge, procedural knowledge, and conditional knowledge. Metacognitive knowledge can be appropriately or inappropriately applied to a learning situation; just because a student has metacognitive knowledge does not mean it is accurate, or that they know how to apply it correctly (Veenman, 2012). Thus, it is important that students get many opportunities to practice their metacognition (Zohar, 2012). Declarative knowledge is one's knowledge of what they know and what they do not know, for example when a student knows that they know the chemical formula of sodium hydroxide but not sodium nitrate. Procedural knowledge is knowledge of how to implement learning procedures and strategies, for example, knowing how to make flashcards, or how to organize notes in the most useful manner. Conditional knowledge is knowledge of when to implement learning strategies. For example, a student uses their conditional knowledge when they know that the best time to use flashcards is when they are trying to memorize lots of information, like the names and formulas of polyatomic ions, but that flashcards would not be appropriate for applying processes such as learning stoichiometry. Veenman (2012) discusses the importance of conditional knowledge for students who are developing metacognitive skills. Conditional knowledge is how students discern when and why a strategy should be applied and developing this knowledge on learning strategies is how students develop their metacognitive skillfulness. There are five types of metacognitive skills that regulate one's knowledge: planning, information management, monitoring, debugging, and evaluating. To explain these five regulatory skills, we will describe how a chemistry student could employ them while solving a stoichiometry problem. At the start of their work, a metacognitive student employs planning by thinking about what information was given to them in the problem, and what the problem wanted them to find: the gram amount produced of one of the products. The student then organizes the information provided according to a system that allows them to easily proceed with solving the problem—using their information management skill. Then while solving the problem a metacognitive student frequently checks to make sure they are working towards the goal they set while planning how to solve the problem—this checking during the task is metacognitive monitoring. While solving the problem, the metacognitive student may become aware of an issue: for example, they realize they forgot to balance the equation before beginning. Monitoring would alert them to the issue, and then the debugging skill would allow the student to solve the issue, by realizing they needed to return to the chemical equation and balance it, and then making any necessary changes to their calculations. Upon reaching a solution to the problem, a metacognitive student reflects on their work and their thought process—metacognitive evaluating.In addition to theories on students’ metacognition, the revised consensus model (RCM) of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) framed our analysis into instructors’ perspectives on metacognition in their courses (Carlson and Daehler, 2019). The revised consensus model is an elaboration and clarification of the consensus model (CM) (Gess-Newsome, 2015) and not a replacement of these models (Carlson and Daehler, 2019). The RCM differentiates levels of PCK: collective PCK (cPCK), personal PCK (pPCK), and enacted PCK (ePCK). The RCM brings clarification and benefits to theory on PCK, including a discussion on the intricate relationship between pPCK and ePCK—an instructor's personal knowledge, beliefs, and thoughts on teaching science and what practices they enact in their classroom (Hume et al., 2019). Carlson and Daehler (2019) describe the inter-relatedness of ePCK and pPCK:
“In the RCM, the knowledge exchange between ePCK and pPCK operates in both directions—the insight a teacher takes away from each interaction with students further informs the teacher's pPCK, and the ePCK a teacher brings into practice for a specific science learning moment depends on the teacher's specific knowledge and skill, which is amplified and filtered through pedagogical reasoning. As such, pPCK is both informed by and informs ePCK.” (Carlson and Daehler, 2019, p. 86)
Measuring or observing ePCK is difficult because it would require an instructor to be able to narrate their thoughts while simultaneously teaching a lesson (Alonzo et al., 2019). Currently, the best methods of understanding ePCK also include understanding pPCK, because the two are so intertwined. This model allowed us to investigate what pPCK these instructors had relating to metacognition development for their students based on interviews on their teaching practices and their expectations of students in their course. By exploring the pPCK of these chemistry instructors, we can begin to comprehend their ePCK, which directly affects what happens in their classrooms.
Rationale for study
According to the consensus model of teacher professional knowledge, (Gess-Newsome, 2015) an instructors’ pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) and classroom practices may not perfectly reflect their knowledge of best teaching practices, because PCK and classroom practices are the result of the instructor's knowledge of teaching and topic-specific teaching practices after they have been filtered through the teacher's beliefs and orientations towards teaching. So even though an instructor may have knowledge of many useful forms of assessment, and the best way to assess a specific topic, if their beliefs about teaching do not align with that method of assessment, they are less likely to implement it. Teachers’ orientations and beliefs about teaching also affect how they present material for their students to learn, and the skills they choose to attempt to develop in their students. Tepner and Sumfleth (2019) posit that teachers’ perceptions, attitudes, and beliefs act as amplifiers and filters to PCK as implicitly represented within the RCM and should be more explicitly discussed because these filters have a “significant impact on teachers’ enactment in classrooms and their students’ learning achievement” (p. 326). In the RCM, a teacher's beliefs and attitudes towards teaching are wrapped up in their personal PCK (pPCK), which directly informs and affects their classroom practices, or their enacted PCK (ePCK) (Alonzo et al., 2019). Gess-Newsome et al. (2003); Henderson et al. (2011) discuss the importance of teacher beliefs when instructors choose to enact new teaching practices. According to both, teachers will not seek out new teaching practices unless they feel dissatisfied with the current state of their pedagogy.Since undergraduate instructors have a wide influence over what happens in their courses, it is crucial to investigate their understanding of metacognition, and discern whether they value metacognitive development for their students. Despite research in general chemistry courses and studies focusing on general chemistry students’ metacognition, there is scant research on postsecondary chemistry instructors’ perspectives of metacognition. We used interviews to gain a richer understanding of chemistry instructors’ thoughts, perspectives, and pPCK about their students’ metacognition development, while answering the following research questions:
(a) In what ways do current postsecondary chemistry instructors value their students having metacognitive skills and knowledge?
(b) How are current postsecondary chemistry instructors encouraging the development of metacognitive skills and knowledge in their students?
(c) What are current postsecondary chemistry instructors’ thoughts, suggestions, and strategies for improving metacognition in their students?
Methods
Participants
Seventeen instructors from six different schools across Colorado accepted an email invitation to participate in this interview study (see Table 1 for the demographics of the participants). The instructors ranged from non-tenure track lecturers to fully tenured professors, ranged from having few years of experience to many (0–25+ years of experience), came from different institutional contexts (R1, R2, PUI), and discussed a range of classroom contexts (general chemistry, organic chemistry, or biochemistry). The email invitation asked instructors to choose an exam-type question from one of their courses to discuss in the interview. Participants were offered a gift card to thank them for their participation.| Course taught | # of participants |
|---|---|
| General chemistry | 8 |
| Organic chemistry | 6 |
| Biochemistry | 3 |
| Years of experience | # of participants |
|---|---|
| 0–5 | 3 |
| 6–10 | 6 |
| 11–15 | 3 |
| 16–20 | 2 |
| 21–25 | 2 |
| 25+ | 1 |
| Tenure status | # of participants |
|---|---|
| Tenured | 8 |
| Tenure-track | 4 |
| Non-tenure track | 5 |
| Institution type | # of participants |
|---|---|
| R1 | 7 |
| R2 | 4 |
| PUI | 6 |
Data collection
The interview protocol was designed so that the interviewer did not bring up the word “metacognition” or “metacognitive” until the last phase of the interview, in order to observe whether participants discussed metacognition without prompting. We did this to limit social desirability bias in participants' answers (i.e. instructors saying that they value developing their students’ metacognition just because the interviewer asked and not because it is something important to their course). Instead, by allowing instructors to talk about their course more generally and their expectations for students, we could identify if developing their students’ metacognition was important enough to talk about even when they were not explicitly asked to do so. The protocol was iteratively edited and reviewed after the first few interviews, and the final version of the protocol is in the Appendix. The interview moved through four phases.In the first phase, the researcher asked questions to “warm up” the instructor being interviewed (i.e. “What course(s) do you currently teach?”, and “What do you want students to learn in this course?”). The second phase discussed an exam question and the interviewer asked the instructors to discuss the thought process of a proficient student as they solved the problem. The exam question gave a tangible object to reflect upon from their teaching in order to make it easier for the instructor to be specific while discussing their expectations and perspectives. In the third phase (implicit metacognition discussion), the interviewer asked the instructor to describe the habits and skills they would attribute to the “ideal student” for their class. Finally, in the fourth phase of the interview, the interviewer asked explicit questions about the instructors’ perspectives on metacognition (i.e. “What comes to mind when you think of the term metacognition?”, “Can you think of ways that you use metacognitive skills in your life—either at work or elsewhere?”, and “Do you do anything to specifically develop metacognitive skills in your students?”). If instructors were not familiar with metacognition, the interviewer briefly defined metacognition and provided examples.
The interviews were recorded and later transcribed verbatim, except for stammering phrases such as “um”, which were removed for clarity. The interviews lasted from 30 minutes to 1 hour and 20 minutes. The interviewer also collected demographic data from the participants. All participants gave informed consent to participate in the study, and this study was approved by the Institutional Review Board of the University of Northern Colorado.
Data analysis
The transcripts were analyzed by reflexive thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006; Braun et al., 2019) in Nvivo 12 to define themes. In an iterative manner, we followed Braun et al.'s (2019) phases of (1) data familiarization, (2) generating codes, (3) constructing themes, (4) reviewing themes, and (5) defining themes. After every interview, initial thoughts and observations were recorded. Coding began by writing a summary of each codable instance. The codable instances were identified as the participant's response to each of the interviewer's questions. Specific codes were developed that closely matched the statements of the participant. Annotations in Nvivo 12 were used to capture the reasoning for assigning different codes to a quote (Merriam and Tisdell, 2016). When multiple related codes were identified, these codes were then grouped into major themes and previously coded transcripts were re-analyzed to catch all instances in the data set. Upon coding of all interviews, both authors individually re-reviewed and consolidated the codebook to arrive at the finalized codebook. The second author then coded four of the interviews for inter-rater agreement and met with the first author to review any disagreements in coding. Initially there was disagreement in 20% of the codes, which were discussed, and agreement was reached on each of these codes.Our analysis included both deductive and inductive processes. Zohar and Dori's (2012) framework of metacognition informed coding of the interview transcripts, so that they were coded for instances of instructors talking about students’ metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive skills during all parts of the interview. In order to focus the analysis on portions of the transcripts that discussed metacognition, in our deductive analysis, the authors coded for any instances where the instructors’ discussion of their students, or their own teaching practices and learning experiences were examples of one or more of the subnodes of metacognitive knowledge (declarative knowledge, procedural knowledge, and conditional knowledge) or metacognitive skills (planning, information management, monitoring, debugging, and evaluating). Because of the organization of the interview guide, many of these instances of metacognition were not identified as such by the instructors, since the questions prompting their discussion in the first three sections of the interview purposefully were not explicitly asking about metacognition. The interviews were then coded inductively to describe the ways instructors value and develop their students’ metacognition and their suggestions and strategies for improving metacognition in their students. We then related these results to the RCM of PCK (Hume et al., 2019). These inductive codes described these instructors’ pPCK of their students’ metacognition development.
Results and discussion
From analysis of these interviews, we identified aspects of these instructors’ pPCK about their students’ metacognition, which was interwoven with their beliefs and their ePCK. As instructors reflected on their teaching practices, we were given a glimpse into their ePCK (Carlson and Daehler, 2019). We uncovered how these instructors valued metacognition, how they described their current metacognitive development practices, and suggestions they had for their students’ metacognitive development. Our initial deductive analysis, framed by Zohar and Dori's (2012) description of metacognition, identified that all the types of metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive skills were discussed by these instructors, though all types were not present in every interview. Every interview was coded with some type of metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive skills. Table 2 provides the definitions of the different types of metacognition according to Zohar and Dori (2012), example quotations from this study's data set, and an explanation for why that code applied to the quote.| Example quote | Explanation |
|---|---|
| Metacognitive knowledge | |
| Declarative knowledge: “Knowledge about one's skills, intellectual resources, and abilities as a learner” | |
| “Well, in some cases I've seen that they are overconfident with some concepts that say, for example, and this happens when you go to office hours after the exam, and they say, ‘Oh I studied so hard and I failed the exam. I don't know what happened.’” Felipe, lines 212–214 | Felipe describes students who lack declarative knowledge, because they were unaware of what concepts they did not know |
| Conditional knowledge: “Knowledge about when and why to use learning procedures” | |
| “Or maybe previous experiences, if they are re-taking the class, sometimes it has flipped, they have flipped their mindset and they are doing something totally different to be successful or they have found, ‘oh, what I did was that, was not correct or not helpful, then let me change that strategy to you know, actually pass the class.’” Felipe, lines 252–256 | Felipe discusses how students who are re-taking a class may have developed their conditional knowledge, they now are able to identify what learning strategies are most appropriate to employ for them to pass the class. |
| Procedural knowledge: “Knowledge about how to implement learning procedures (e.g., strategies)” | |
| “But for me, I guess if I don't understand something, I keep working at it until I do. And I do just basically this; I'd draw pictures of the things, I think about trying different things, but I just keep trying different things until I get the right solution. But then I go back and I try to think, ‘Well why did I make the wrong solution to begin with?’” Truong, lines 270–273 | Truong describes a learning procedure he implements when trying to understand something new: drawing pictures, trying different things to get to the solution. |
| Metacognitive skills | |
| Planning: “Planning, goal setting, and allocating resources prior to learning” | |
| “I mean planning how to teach a course. First you have to decide…first you have to learn the material, then you have to decide what's important to teach and then you have to decide how you're going to deliver it, and then how you're going to test people on it. What is it I actually want people to know and what are ways I can assess that?” Noam, lines 225–228 | In this quote, Noam describes how he uses metacognitive planning to organize the materials he needs to cover (allocating resources) and sets goals for how to successfully teach students the learning objectives of the course. |
| Information management: “Skills and strategy sequences used on-line to process information more efficiently” | |
| “Color coding, different color paper, different flags, everything, I think those are amazing, I always have flags for everything. And I tried to highlight and underline things so that I could remember.” Felipe, lines 336–338 | In this quote, Felipe describes how he uses the strategy of color-coding information to help him process and remember material more efficiently. |
| Monitoring: “Ongoing appraisal of one's learning or strategy use” | |
| “When I attack a problem, usually not Gen Chem problems, but sometimes, I'll start it and I'll be like, ‘Oh, work it out this way,’ and then I'll realize halfway through I'm making a bad assumption and then I'll have to re-work it. And that's just how it goes.” Janay, lines 61–64 | In this quote, Janay describes how in the middle of working on a problem, her monitoring skill alerts her to when she has made a bad assumption, and that she needs to re-start the problem. |
| Debugging: “Strategies used during learning to correct comprehension and performance errors” | |
| “So what I started telling my students at the end of this last semester was, when you have a problem…write a sentence about the problem that tells—that says, ‘This problem is asking this. I solved it by identifying blah blah blah,’ and then writing just a para—a little two- or three-sentence description of how you solved the problem. Especially do this when you run into a problem halfway through. So, like, and if you do, describe what you ran into, and why, and how you solved that.” Janay, lines 440–446 | In this quote, Janay describes how she teaches her students to metacognitively debug: when they run into a problem, they should write a sentence or two describing what they did and why they did it, which causes the students to evaluate their thinking process in solving the problem, and allows them to look for performance errors. |
| Evaluation: “Analysis of performance and strategy effectiveness after a learning episode” | |
| “I mean we do, kind of, the one-minute papers occasionally in class, so like, ‘what do you really understand? What don't you understand? What one thing would you change about what we've been doing?’” Ming, lines 377–379 | At the end of a lecture, Ming likes to use one-minute papers to allow her students to evaluate their understanding of the material they learned during that day's class period. |
The metacognitive skill “evaluation” was present in sixteen of the interviews, which was the highest frequency for any of the types of metacognition. The least coded type of metacognition was the metacognitive skill “monitoring” which was only coded in four of the interviews. Because “monitoring” is a skill that happens during a task, the authors were not surprised that discussion of this skill was scarce. Even though the instructors were not explicitly asked about metacognition until the last section of the interview guide, all seventeen instructors discussed something metacognitive before the explicit metacognition discussion portion of the interview. Thus, the interview guide was successful in implicitly and explicitly prompting instructors to discuss students’ metacognition in the context of their course. We will now discuss the results of our inductive analysis of how these instructors valued metacognition, how they described their current metacognitive development practices, and suggestions they had for their students’ metacognitive development. Table 3 provides the inductive codes (names and descriptions) found in the data.
| How instructors value metacognition: level of importance of metacognition (I1) | |
| I1a: metacognition not valued | Instructor did not value metacognition |
| I1b: metacognition is not crucial, but could be important | Instructor made statements indicating that metacognition was not essential for their students, but that it could be useful or important |
| I1c: metacognition development is more important than chemistry | Instructor made comments that indicated they believed developing their students’ metacognition was more important than teaching them about chemistry |
| How instructors value metacognition: who's responsible for students’ metacognition (I2) | |
| I2a: student responsible | Instructor believed only the student is responsible for developing their metacognition |
| I2b: another course responsible | Instructor believed another course is responsible for developing metacognition |
| I2c: instructor responsible | Instructor believed they are responsible for developing their students’ metacognition |
| How instructors value metacognition: why instructor thinks metacognition is important (I3) | |
| I3a: metacognition leads to success | Instructor believed metacognition will help students be successful in the future |
| I3b: value in metacognition inside and outside the classroom | Instructor discussed instances of the importance of metacognition inside and outside of the classroom |
| I3c: important for students to know how they think | Instructor believed students should use metacognition, including when they think about how they think about chemistry |
| How instructors value metacognition: how natural is metacognition (I4) | |
| I4a: develops naturally | Instructor believed students’ metacognition develops without prompting, innate skill |
| I4b: does not develop naturally | Instructor believed students’ metacognition does not develop without training |
| I4c: natural to not think about thinking | Instructor believed metacognition is unnatural |
| How instructors value metacognition: types of metacognition valued by instructors (I5) | |
| I5a: values metacognitive knowledge | Instructor made statements indicating they value students having strong declarative knowledge, procedural knowledge, and/or conditional knowledge |
| I5b: values metacognitive skills | Instructor made statements indicating they value students having strong planning skills, information management skills, monitoring skills, debugging skills, and/or evaluating skills |
| How instructors value metacognition: values metacognition without knowing definition (I6) | |
| I6: values metacognition without knowing definition | Instructor assigned value to some activity or habit that the researchers coded as metacognitive, though the instructor could not define or describe “metacognition” |
| Developing metacognition in students (I7) | |
| I7a: explicit metacognition development | Instructor explicitly discusses with students the importance of metacognition, by using the terms “metacognition” or “metacognitive” |
| I7b: implicit metacognition development | Instructor discusses the importance of metacognition with their students, but does not use the term “metacognition”, and does not provide activities or assignments for the students to practice using their metacognition |
| I7c: implicit metacognition development with scaffolding | Instructor discusses the importance of metacognition with their students without using “metacognition” or similar terms, and described a scaffolded activity or assignment they provided students to practice using their metacognition |
| Suggestions for metacognition development (I8) | |
| I8a: general suggestions | Suggestions made by instructors that allude to generic teaching practices, and do not mention specific steps with the goal of developing student's metacognition |
| I8b: metacognition-specific suggestions | Suggestions made by instructors that mention specific steps with the goal of developing student's metacognition |
| Barriers to metacognition development (I9) | |
| I9a: institutional barriers | Barriers related to the institution, or just to the nature of teaching at a university |
| I9b: student barriers | Barriers related to the students |
| I9c: instructor barriers | Instructors identified ways that instructors (themselves and other colleagues) can be barriers to their students’ metacognition development |
| I9d: time barriers | Instructor identified that they don't have the time to learn about metacognition to be able to teach it, or don't have the time to implement it in class. |
| Instructors mistaking cognition for metacognition (I10) | |
| I10a: reflection is metacognition | Instructor discussed a reflection activity but did not discuss that the students are reflecting on their thinking processes in some way |
| I10b: thinking deeply is metacognition | Instructor identified activities/questions/homework that “really makes them think” |
| I10c: review sessions develop metacognition | Instructor discussed review sessions but did not discuss any activities in those workshops/review sessions that encourage students to think about their thinking |
How instructors value metacognition
There was one overarching code that answered the first RQ: “In what ways do current postsecondary chemistry instructors value their students having metacognitive skills?” which was named “How instructors value metacognition”.Metacognition not valued (I1a). Of the seventeen instructors interviewed, there were two that did not think metacognition was important for their class. Hector, (PMC1-14), did not believe metacognition was necessary or helpful for his students’ success:
“Researcher: Would you say, so would you say that it's any person's responsibility to teach students about metacognition? Like your responsibility, or a previous instructor in their life? or not?
Hector: No, I don't think that.
Researcher: No? Ok. Why not?
Hector: That's good question, why not? Because I think a good teacher, when he teach you, everything's comes very naturally. You don't really need to be aware, there is something behind this, like a formal organization, a formal way of doing the things. When a good teacher teach you, everything just come like water flowing through. So natural. You aren't aware of anything and you already learned it. Does that make sense?” (Hector, lines 254–263)
According to Hector, it is better for his students to not think about how they think about things, and he believes it is a sign of good teaching when a student is able to absorb knowledge without being aware that they are learning.
Metacognition is not crucial, but could be important (I1b). There were six instructors that made comments about metacognition that indicated they believe it is not essential for their class but could be important for students. Kichion, was one of those instructors:
“Researcher: Do you feel that it's your responsibility to teach them [students] how to use metacognitive skills?
Kichion: I think it's important skill, but I do what I can, but I don't consider that to be my primary responsibility, I think this would be a good topic to cover in maybe University 101, just to get them ready for college…I think it is, I think it is important. I mean it's just not for this class, I think, it's probably a life skill as well. But yeah, I definitely say it is important. But I just don't have, like I cannot devote a whole lot of, you know, the class time, to that.” (Kichion, lines 356–360, 371–373)
Like Kichion, other instructors could see the value of their students being metacognitive but were concerned that their current curriculum did not have time available to spend on teaching students about metacognition or doing in-class activities to develop metacognition. Instead some instructors considered resources outside of their course, such as courses designed to teach study skills, as a place for students to learn metacognitive skills.
Metacognition development is more important than chemistry (I1c). There was one instructor, Isaac, who believed that metacognition development was more important for his students than teaching them about chemistry.
“Isaac: And so that, the entire point of that simulation was a basically a metacognition experiment. I mean I think that probably a number of the students did learn, actually I know because I evaluated it, that a number of students did learn a fair bit about, you know, the topic at hand, you know, being able to express and purify proteins. But I think that that was the less important lesson.” (Isaac, lines 398–402)
To Isaac, learning all the small details about chemistry was not necessary for his students to be successful. He believed that teaching in a manner that allowed students to think about how they think about chemistry and research is what is necessary for his students to be successful chemists. There were also nine instructors who did not indicate during their interviews how important metacognition was for their students, simply that they believed it was important.
“We try to say in class, ‘This is the reason that we're doing this. We're doing this because it's really important for you to think about how you're thinking about things. And this will help you to be more successful in our class and other classes as well.’” (Natalia, lines 606–609)
Natalia believes metacognition is beneficial for her students, and that metacognitive skills will help them to succeed in her class and other classes they will take in their undergraduate career. There were four instructors in this study who believed metacognition would be valuable for their students beyond the chemistry classroom. These instructors discussed how they believed metacognition was not only helpful for their students in learning chemistry, but that it would also help them in their future careers. One example of this is Felipe:
“Researcher: So do you think metacognition is important for your students?
Felipe: Absolutely, yeah. Absolutely, “cause, it is not only important for the classes, this is a skill that I think that they will carry for the rest of their careers, as they go to any job, and they need to solve problems all the time. And if they're in the sciences that's what they are gonna do, so I think that metacognition is part of being in the sciences.” (Felipe, lines 434–438)
Felipe discusses how he believes metacognition is important for his students in his class, but that is not the only reason metacognitive training could be beneficial for his students—he also believes that having strong metacognition will benefit his students in the future. His comment “metacognition is part of being in the sciences” conveys just how necessary Felipe believes metacognition is for his chemistry students.
“But I think a very important skill that I learned from my experience, now I'm teaching my students as well, we have to learn the way to study. So it is not just about how many hours we spend on the materials, but also the proper way of study, am I efficient in going through the materials? Do I have the correct way of doing the questions? And do I ask the proper questions to my instructors, or to my tutor? When do I seek help? Do I seek help right away, you know, before I even look at a question I ask somebody to help me solve it? Do I try solving the problem, then I fail, then ask people to give me suggestions or hint? So I think those are more important skill and learn how to study, I think is, especially for organic chemistry.” (Rob, 283–291)
Rob wants his students to learn how to learn in his class. He believes that if his students can properly evaluate their current learning procedures (metacognitive skills, evaluating) that they will be able to develop better metacognitive knowledge of how to learn (metacognitive knowledge, procedural knowledge). From this quote, it is obvious that Rob values metacognition, even though later in the interview he is not familiar enough with the term to describe it.
Current metacognitive development practices
The second research question of this study, “How are these instructors encouraging the development of metacognitive skills in their students?”, was addressed in another of the top-level nodes in the codebook: “Developing metacognition and learning strategies”. There were three main approaches to metacognition development discussed by the instructors in this study: explicit metacognition development, implicit metacognition development, and implicit metacognition development with scaffolding.“I think that, and I tell my students from day one, you need to be familiar with a metacognitive approach. Metacognitive approaches to studying, how to study, and learning how you are learning, is probably one of the most important things in self-diagnosing for correcting when you have a insufficiency or some kind of cognitive disconnect. Because if you understand, or if you can recognize that when you answer a question, you're not doing that at 100% confidence, that you're not really sure of what the answer is, but you got it right, and then you say, you just decide, ‘Oh ok I guess that's ok.’ That that can be just as lethal for your grade as being outright wrong, because at least if you're outright incorrect you know, ‘I didn't know the material.’ But if you do that with false self-confidence, and you think you know the material, that's just as bad.” (Kevin, lines 350–359)
Kevin discusses with his students why he thinks metacognition is so important for them, that he believes it is crucial for his students to have a metacognitive approach to studying. Kevin believes that it is important for students to have strong declarative knowledge, so that they can be aware of when they know something and when they do not know something as well as they should. In his interview, Kevin did not discuss any class activities that he implements to provide practice for his students to develop their declarative knowledge, he only described how he frequently tells his students about the importance of metacognition in their studying. All other instances of metacognition development in this interview study were coded as either implicit development, or implicit with scaffolding.
“…it's talking to them about, ‘How do you know what you know?’ and I, I do tell them it's part of the soft skills of a class. Do I assess it, whether they have metacognition? No. I tell them, ‘You need to do this in your life, but I'm not going to take points off because you haven't been able to,’ but I could. I think, maybe give some points for starting to think about those things.” (Kaili, lines 274–282, 656–659)
Kaili frequently emphasizes the importance of “knowing what you know” to her students, which is declarative knowledge, but does not provide any activity for her students to practice evaluating the limits of their knowledge. She admits that she views metacognition development as an important “soft skill” but does not consider it to be important enough to give students credit for working on being more metacognitive in her class. Earlier in her interview, Kaili mentions that she likes test questions that require students to integrate a lot of knowledge, because they require students to reflect on what they need to know (metacognition). Even though she believes these types of questions should make her students pause and reflect on their understanding, she does not incorporate that reflection into the question, or in a homework or in-class assignment.
“They have to actually take their problem set and the key and analyze it, and actually go through and say what was wrong about their answer, and then the most important, why is it wrong, you can't just say ‘I had the group on the wrong spot.’ You have to say well why is that the wrong spot? You know, what concept do you need to work on?” (Mar, 214–218)
In this quote, Mar discusses the post-exam self-reflection assignments she has her students do after every exam. This assignment requires students to go over every incorrect answer and evaluate their thinking processes. Mar does not let students write simple short reflections about their answers either; they must fully explain why their thinking about the question was wrong and identify areas of study for them to improve. This activity requires students to practice the metacognitive skill of evaluating, and develop their declarative knowledge, specifically their knowledge of what they do not yet know.
Suggestions for metacognitive development
The last research question, “What are these instructors’ thoughts, suggestions, and strategies for improving metacognition in their students?” was answered by instructors’ responses to one of the later interview questions: “How can chemistry instructors as a whole improve the development of our students’ metacognition?” Instructors’ responses to this question varied, and the researchers categorized the answers into two main groups: general suggestions (7 instructors) and metacognition-specific suggestions (4 instructors).Barriers to metacognition development
To fully answer RQ3, it is pertinent to also discuss the barriers to metacognition development these instructors were experiencing, because in order to make improvements, it is necessary to identify obstacles that may impede that improvement. The instructors we interviewed discussed four types of barriers they experienced to implementing metacognition development in their class: institutional barriers, student barriers, instructor barriers, and time barriers. Examples of institutional barriers (I9a) were the perception of class sizes being too large to implement metacognition development, that these instructors were not incentivized by their school or department to spend class time on “soft skills” like metacognition, and that while in graduate school, these instructors did not attend universities that prioritized training their graduate students how to teach chemistry. There was one instructor (Isaac) that mentioned he had not experienced any sort of institutional barriers, and throughout his interview he discussed multiple ways he was able to implement metacognition development in his classes. The researchers found this to be incredibly important—the only participant that could not cite any institutional barriers, described multiple activities he used in the classroom to develop his students’ metacognition. The second type of barrier, students as barrier (I9b), was discussed the most (9 instructors) of all the types of barriers. The main complaint voiced by instructors was that if they tried to implement any sort of metacognition development, students would not see the value in it, and would think the instructor was wasting valuable class time. In contrast, there were multiple ways our participants perceived instructors as barriers (I9c) to metacognition development. One belief was that instructors lack training to implement metacognition development, or simply do not know how to incorporate metacognition into their class in a meaningful way. Another belief was that chemistry is too abstract of a subject for metacognition to be relevant. Lastly, there were two instructors that believed that instructors do not value metacognition and are reluctant to self-evaluate their own teaching practices. The last barrier these instructors discussed is a common one whenever any change is suggested—there is simply not enough time (time barriers, I9d). There were multiple instructors that believed metacognition was important and valuable for their students but did not feel they had enough class time to spend on any sort of metacognitive development.Mistaking cognitive development for metacognitive development (I10)
In the last portion of the interview guide, where metacognition was explicitly discussed, we observed several instances of instructors discussing ideas for metacognition development that, from what they said in that moment, did not demonstrate evidence of being metacognitive. When asked to describe activities that develop their students’ metacognition, many instructors answered similarly to Isaac, who said he liked to use test questions that had students learn while taking the exam:“Researcher: Is there anything else besides what we've discussed that you do to develop metacognition?
Isaac: Oh, yeah so I mean, that's definitely one, that I would say, as well. And also, you know, the design an experiment types of exam questions. I've always liked exam questions where the, you learn something by taking the exam. Because students remember exams, more so than they're probably gonna remember anything that happened in the lecture. So if you can get them to learn something in the exam, then they've learned something and that's the point of the class. And so I like questions where they can still learn something on the exam. And designing experiments is one way to help do that.” (Isaac, lines 469–477)
Isaac identified these “design an experiment” type test questions as an activity that can develop metacognition, but from this quote there is no evidence of how this activity encourages students to be metacognitive. Instead, students need to think deeply about what they know about experimental procedures. There may be aspects of this type of question that do encourage students to be metacognitive, but from what Isaac has said about the question in this quote, the researchers could not find any evidence of metacognition, only cognition. We also encountered this issue when some of the instructors discussed review sessions they held as ways to develop metacognition. For example, in Mar's interview she responds to this same question by discussing “special topic workshops” that she holds for students, but in her discussion she does not describe anything codable as metacognition. Similar to the test questions Isaac described, there could be metacognitive training and development happening in Mar's “special topic workshops”, but from the information she provides about these workshops in her interview, the researchers were unable to code any type of metacognition. The last common example of instructors mistaking cognition for metacognition was the idea that if students are reflecting on something, they are using their metacognition. In his interview, Felipe discussed a reading reflection activity that he identified as metacognitive development, but his description does not specify what the students are reflecting on. If they just take time to absorb the information in the reading, or decide if the reading was interesting or not, that type of reflection is not metacognitive. The students could be reflecting on how well they understand the material after reading it (evaluating their declarative knowledge, which would be metacognitive reflection), but with the information provided here the researchers did not feel comfortable inferring that.
The researchers saw evidence of this code, “mistaking cognition for metacognition” even in the suggestions for metacognition development discussed above. Some of the ideas instructors suggested were viable options for encouraging students’ metacognition, like Felipe's idea to incorporate metacognitive activities into assignments in the course. But other ideas the instructors presented lacked clear evidence of how that activity related to students’ metacognition, such as the suggestions that students need to do a lot of repetitive practice, or need to answer questions that require them to build evidence-based arguments. What was intriguing was that the instructor's level of prior knowledge of metacognition did not relate to whether or not they made statements where they mistook metacognition for cognition; instructors who were able to perfectly define metacognition during the explicit metacognition discussion were some of the same people to suggest activities for metacognitive development that were not metacognitive in nature. This may have been caused by the wording of the questions in the interview guide. When the researcher asked participants about how they developed their students’ metacognition, she did not ask the instructor to explain why they thought that activity would cause the students to be metacognitive. The researchers can only interpret what the instructors discussed, thus in instances where instructors only mention the cognitive aspects of an activity, the researchers concluded that the cognitive aspects were what the instructors believed were most relevant.
Contextual features
According to the revised consensus model of pedagogical content knowledge, the learning context and broader contextual features such as teacher experience and school characteristics influence instructors’ PCK (Carlson and Daehler, 2019; Wilson et al., 2019).Relationships between instructors’ values and strategies to develop students’ metacognition
The two instructors (Truong and George) who did not talk about activities that could develop their students’ metacognition also viewed the development of students’ metacognition as the student's responsibility. However, they both made statements indicating that they valued something that could be defined as students’ metacognition. For example,“‘Each of you need to learn yourselves how you think best.’ I said, ‘Not all of you think the same, but that's your job to think—to learn how you think, because that'll only help you later on. If you know that way, people can maybe help you reinforce how you think, but the ultimate goal is you guys have to do it yourself.’” (Truong, lines 424–428)
For Truong, it was important that students think about their thinking because this would help them later in their career, but he saw it was mainly the students’ responsibility to figure out how to do that. Instructors who used scaffolding to develop their students’ metacognition unsurprisingly also talked about metacognition as important for their class. Additionally, they made most of the comments detailing why metacognition is important. They were the only participants to talk about wanting to improve their teaching of metacognition. However, some instructors (3) who talked about scaffolded activities also thought it would be better if the students learned how to develop their metacognition in another course. For example,
“I think it's important skill, but I do what I can, but I don't consider that to be my primary responsibility, I think this would be a good topic to cover in maybe University 101, just to get them ready for college. […] it's probably a life skill as well […] I just don't have, like I cannot devote a whole lot of, you know, the class time to that.” (Kichion, lines 357–371) “For the last couple of semesters after the first exam, I give them a bonus assignment asking them to be self-reflective, how did you do on this test? What did you do to prepare for this test? Did it work? or did it not work? If it's not working, what do you plan to do differently? […] for the second test […] did you use the strategy or whatever change you think you're gonna make after the first test? Did you do that? If you did, did it work?” (Kichion, lines 321–334)
Kichion described a set of scaffolded activities he used in his class to develop students’ metacognition (which he valued as an important life skill), but he felt time was limited for these activities within his course and saw value in this development occurring mainly in another course. Instructors who thought that metacognition development was the professors’ responsibility were the instructors who talked about activities they used that could develop students’ metacognition (explicitly, implicitly, or with scaffolding). Also, most instructors who valued metacognitive knowledge and skills discussed activities they implemented that could develop their students’ metacognition.
Relationships between level of knowledge about metacognition and strategies to develop students’ metacognition
The three instructors who were able to define metacognition all discussed ways they implemented metacognition development with scaffolding. Five of the six instructors in the knowledge category of “knew of metacognition but could not define” were already implementing implicit metacognition development with scaffolding, according to their descriptions of their classroom practices. All of the instructors that fully or partially defined metacognition discussed ways they were already developing their students’ metacognition. The three instructors who were unable to define metacognition were split among different development groups. This led us to conclude that lacking knowledge about the definition of metacognition did not necessarily prevent these instructors from implementing it in their courses and encouraging it in their students, but that the instructors who were knowledgeable of metacognition could also discuss ways they implement it.Relationships between types of metacognition discussed, instructors’ level of knowledge, values, and strategies to develop students’ metacognition
Every interview had some type of metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive skill coded. There were instructors from every knowledge level that were coded with discussing the different types of students’ metacognitive knowledge: procedural knowledge, declarative knowledge, and conditional knowledge. For metacognitive skills, planning, debugging, and evaluation were present in interviews from all knowledge levels. Information management and monitoring were not present in interviews where the instructor did not know of metacognition but were coded in interviews from all other knowledge levels. Instructors from every knowledge level of metacognition valued metacognitive skills, especially the skill “evaluation”. Additionally, all instances of valuing students’ metacognitive knowledge were spread across all knowledge levels of metacognition. Thus, having a robust knowledge of metacognition was not necessary for these instructors to value their students employing metacognition in their courses.Additionally, all types of metacognitive knowledge and skills were discussed by participants in each development group (no development, explicit, implicit, or metacognitive development with scaffolding), but each type of metacognitive skill was not discussed by instructors from each development group. Instructors who discussed expecting something metacognitive from their students in their exam question, came from every level of knowledge category. Thus for these instructors whether or not they discussed aspects of students’ metacognition while discussing their exam question was not related to their knowledge of metacognition. Similarly, instructors who at some point in the interview mistook cognition for metacognition came from every level of knowledge category.
Conclusions and implications
This study captured these instructors’ pPCK about their students’ metacognition, which is interwoven with their ePCK. As instructors discussed their teaching practices we were given a glimpse of their ePCK, and their thoughts from the reflection portion of the “Plan–Teach–Reflect” cycle. As discussed in the RCM, ePCK determines student learning outcomes (Hume et al., 2019). If an instructor does not have students’ metacognition development as a part of their ePCK, it will be more difficult for instructors to implement it. Our study's results support this idea. We found that the eight instructors who had some knowledge of metacognition (could fully or partially define metacognition) all discussed ways they implement some type of metacognitive development for their students, thus possessing pPCK of metacognition allowed them to discuss how they implemented metacognition development in their courses. Even though 9 of the 17 instructors we interviewed either did not know of metacognition or could not define or describe it when asked, every instructor discussed learning strategies and habits that included some type of metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive skills in their interview. Thus, metacognition was not a foreign concept for any of these instructors, but there were some of them who were unfamiliar with the educational psychology terms for metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive skills. We identified more concerning gaps in the pPCK and cPCK of these instructors, besides their knowledge of educational psychology terms. With 12 instructors “mistaking cognition for metacognition” at some point in their interview, we can conclude that these instructors’ pPCK of metacognition had some imperfections and gaps of knowledge. Also, the instructors who believed metacognition was solely their students’ responsibility were lacking PCK about how students develop their metacognition within their course. As Stanton et al. (2015) found in their study with undergraduate introductory biology students, not all students know how to use their metacognition without some training. The instructors who believed it was the responsibility of another class to teach their students about metacognition were assuming that the learning context of their course included an undisclosed prerequisite of metacognitive training for the students. Another gap in knowledge was identified by some of the instructors in this study and could possibly be a gap in collective PCK. There were a few instructors who discussed a lack of training on metacognition development as a barrier to them implementing it in their courses. They discussed how training in educational theory and best practices was rare for post-secondary chemistry instructors, and often difficult to find or make time for. This lack of training was not only a gap in these instructors’ pPCK, but a gap in the collective PCK of post-secondary chemistry instructors, due to the lack of instructional training required by most chemistry departments.Though there was evidence that instructors who had knowledge of metacognition were already implementing metacognitive development, knowledge of metacognition was not essential for an instructor to develop their students’ metacognition. We observed that seven of the nine instructors who had little to no knowledge of metacognition described ways they were already incorporating metacognitive development into their courses. An interesting example of this was Hector. Hector did not know the term metacognition before the interview, and once the interviewer described metacognition to him, he did not believe it was important for his students. Despite this belief, he described ways that he implicitly developed his students’ metacognition, and how he valued study habits and ways of thinking for his students that the researchers coded as metacognition during his interview. When the interviewer described metacognition to Hector, he said he believed that metacognition was a subconscious process that his students already did, and so he believed it was unnecessary to incorporate a formal process for metacognition development into his course. For Hector, and instructors like him who do not see the relevance of the formal definitions of metacognition to their courses, we suggest advertising activities that “covertly” develop students’ metacognition, along with their conceptual understanding of a topic in chemistry. Many activities that develop students’ metacognition without explicitly discussing metacognition already exist for chemistry courses. A few examples of these types of activities currently exist in the literature (Sandi-Urena et al., 2012; Casselman and Atwood, 2017; Bowen et al., 2018; Young et al., 2019; Fishovitz et al., 2020; Kadioglu-Akbulut and Uzuntiryaki-Kondakci, 2020; Ye et al., 2020). Schraw et al.'s (2006) discussion of the Self-Regulated Learning Theory explains the importance of considering metacognition development along with students’ cognition and motivation. Students who are self-regulated have strong metacognition, cognition, and motivation to succeed in an area, so it is important that instructors are considering metacognition and cognition together, and unnecessary for them to separate out these two areas of learning that are incredibly intertwined.
While we do think “covert” metacognitive activities are a good way to have instructors who are less interested in metacognition incorporate it into their courses, we cannot deny the benefits of instructor awareness of metacognition that we observed in our study. Activities that explicitly discuss metacognition with students through direct training can have benefits (Blank, 2000; Cook et al., 2013; Visser and Flynn, 2018; Graham et al., 2019; Swamy and Bartman, 2019; Mutambuki et al., 2020). As the RCM discusses, instructors’ pPCK influences their classroom practices (ePCK) (Carlson and Daehler, 2019). We observed that all of the instructors with some knowledge of metacognition discussed ways they were already implementing metacognition development in their courses. Since our results aligned with the model of how pPCK can affect ePCK, we believe raising instructor awareness of metacognition and how to incorporate metacognition development in their courses will increase instructor implementation. Awareness is also necessary to address the many gaps in knowledge we identified in these instructors’ pPCK of metacognition.
According to the Teacher-Centered Systemic Reform model (Woodbury and Gess-Newsome 2002; Gess-Newsome et al., 2003) of teacher beliefs, teachers will not seek to change their teaching practices unless they are unhappy with the current status quo. Instructors in this study indicated that they lacked training, wanted more training on how to develop their students’ metacognition in their courses, and discussed current barriers such as time and institutional constraints. Removing perceived barriers to reform does not necessarily lead to instructors implementing reformed teaching practices. Instead teacher beliefs may play a more important role (Gess-Newsome et al., 2003). We identified that these instructors’ beliefs may align with improving efforts to develop their students’ metacognition. Since we identified instances of instructors discussing their students’ metacognitive skills and knowledge in every interview, regardless of an instructor's knowledge level or view of the importance of metacognition, these instructors were already familiar with student habits and practices that are metacognitive, even if they were unfamiliar with the educational psychology terminology. Since many of them made statements indicating they thought practices that we coded as metacognitive were beneficial for students, it appears that professional development to aid instructors in developing their students’ metacognition would not struggle to demonstrate to instructors the relevance and importance of metacognition, if it showed them how developing students’ metacognition in their courses aligns with their current beliefs. This knowledge combined with our observation that all of the instructors who knew something about metacognition were already implementing some development in their classes leads us to believe that raising instructors’ awareness of the importance of metacognition is a feasible task that could lead to an increase in metacognition development in chemistry courses. An approach that relies on dissemination of documented resources to instructors may have a lower impact than desired and result in discontinued use over time (Henderson et al., 2012). Instead, change efforts that target whole departments, instead of individual instructors, over long spans of time may result in more sustainable change (Reinholz et al., 2019).
Limitations
Being a qualitative study, these findings are not generalizable, since there were only 17 participants, all undergraduate chemistry instructors at institutions in Colorado. But, the goal of qualitative research is not to be generalizable—our goal with this study was instead to be transferable (Merriam and Tisdell, 2016). By providing a rich description of the data collected, with detailed information to support the interpretation and conclusions we drew from the data, the reader can make an informed decision about how this study translates to their teaching and research practices.A limitation in our data collection was that we did not employ any methods to accurately measure these instructors’ understanding of metacognition, and the questions included in the interview guide are not specific enough to determine whether or not the instructors who said they knew what metacognition was had “sufficient” knowledge of the definition and relevant educational theories. The RCM of PCK discusses the importance of understanding an instructor's personal PCK, because this directly affects their classroom practices (their ePCK) (Carlson and Daehler, 2019). Thus, it was less important for us to evaluate these participants’ understanding of metacognition, and more important to get a rich understanding of how they valued metacognition development for their students. According to the RCM, observing these instructors’ classroom practices would also have been a way to capture how they valued metacognition development by observing the results of their enacted PCK (Alonzo et al., 2019). Thus, a limitation of this study is that we did not capture classroom observations, which could have provided an even deeper understanding of how these instructors valued metacognition.
Conflicts of interest
There are no conflicts to declare.Appendix
Interview guide:Phase 1: Introductory questions
• What are the main courses that you teach?
• What are all the courses you have taught?
• What do you intend the students to learn in this course? What do you see as the major focus of this course? (Why is it important for students to know this?)
• Describe your classroom environment (or describe an in-class activity, expectations of students in that activity)
Phase 2: Exam question discussion
• Please provide an exam type problem that you believe could best assess whether a student “got it” as far as the main material is concerned. In other words, if you were short of time and had to grade only part of the exam, which problems would best demonstrate that students do or don't get it? (question attached)
Now show me how you expect a proficient student to solve the problem.
• What knowledge or reasoning skills were you expecting students to demonstrate with this question?
• Would a partial answer to the test question tell you anything about the student? If so, what?
Phase 3: Implicit metacognition discussion
• Describe the “ideal” college student/What do students need to be able to do to be successful in your class?
(How many (about what percentage) of your students meet these criteria?)
• Do you see a difference in students’ study habits/skills depending on their age? Either traditional students vs. non-traditional students or lowerclassmen vs. upperclassmen?
• Do you expect students to be self-motivated and self-regulatory in their learning? If so, what does a self-motivated and self-regulated student look like to you?
• Do you see these abilities in your students?
• Do you remember how you developed the ability to self-regulate your learning? When do you feel like you took ownership of your own education? Was there anything in particular that you did, or that changed for you?
(Was there ever a time when you realized your study habits were not as good as you thought they were? What did you do to change?)
Phase 4: Explicit metacognition discussion
One of my goals in this study is to discern professors’ perspectives on metacognition
• What comes to mind when you think of metacognition?/How would you define metacognition? (thinking about thinking, metacognitive knowledge = knowing what you know/don’t know, metacognitive skills = planning, monitoring, evaluating)
• How would you describe metacognitive skills?
• In what types of experiences/activities do you notice yourself using metacognitive skills?
• Are there any class activities, lab activities, or types of problems where you expect your students to have the ability to plan, monitor, and evaluate their progress/learning/understanding?
• Is it the professors’ responsibility to teach students about metacognitive skills? Why or why not? If so, what does that look like?
• If not, how should students be learning these skills? Whose responsibility is it to teach them?
• Do you think metacognition is important? Why or why not?
• Do you do anything to specifically develop metacognitive skills in your students?
• How can we (chemistry instructors) improve the development of metacognition in chemistry students?
• What are some barriers that you have experienced to being able to develop metacognition in your students?
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank our participants for their time and thoughtful interviews, the University of Northern Colorado (UNC) Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry and UNC's Graduate Student Association for financial support, and Brittney Morgan and the reviewers for their helpful and constructive comments.References
- Adadan E., (2019), Analyzing the role of metacognitive awareness in preservice chemistry teachers' understanding of gas behavior in a multirepresentational instruction setting, J. Res. Sci. Teach., 57, 253–278 DOI:10.1002/tea.21589.
- Alonzo A. C., Berry A. and Nilsson P., (2019), Unpacking the complexity of science teachers’ PCK in action: enacted and personal PCK, in Hume A., Cooper R. and Borowski A. (ed.), Repositioning pedagogical content knowledge in teachers’ knowledge for teaching science, Singapore, Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd, pp. 271–286.
- Beck C. W. and Blumer L. S., (2016), Alternative realities: faculty and student perceptions of instructional practices in laboratory courses, CBE Life Sci. Educ., 15(4), 1–10 DOI:10.1187/cbe.16-03-0139.
- Bell P. and Volckmann D., (2011), Knowledge surveys in general chemistry: confidence, overconfidence, and performance, J. Chem. Educ., 88(11), 1469–1476 DOI:10.1021/ed100328c.
- Blank L. M., (2000), A metacognitive learning cycle: a better warranty for student understanding? Sci. Educ., 84(4), 486–506.
- Bowen R. S., Picard D. R., Verberne-Sutton S. and Brame C. J., (2018), Incorporating student design in an HPLC lab activity promotes student metacognition and argumentation, J. Chem. Educ., 95(1), 108–115 DOI:10.1021/acs.jchemed.7b00258.
- Braun V. and Clarke V., (2006), Using thematic analysis in psychology, Qual. Res. Psychol., 3(2), 77–101 DOI:10.1191/1478088706qp063oa.
- Braun V., Clarke V., Hayfield N. and Gareth T., (2019), Thematic analysis, in P. Liamputtong (ed.), Handbook of Research Methods in Health Social Sciences, Singapore, Nature Singapore Pte Ltd, pp. 843–860.
- Casselman B. L. and Atwood C. H., (2017), Improving general chemistry course performance through online homework-based metacognitive training, J. Chem. Educ., 94(12), 1811–1821 DOI:10.1021/acs.jchemed.7b00298.
- Carlson J. and Daehler K. R., (2019), The refined consensus model of pedagogical content knowledge in science education, in Hume A., Cooper R. and Borowski A. (ed.), Repositioning pedagogical content knowledge in teachers’ knowledge for teaching science, Singapore, Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd, pp. 77–92.
- Cook E., Kennedy E. and McGuire S. Y., (2013), Effect of teaching metacognitive learning strategies on performance in general chemistry courses, J. Chem. Educ., 90(8), 961–967 DOI:10.1021/ed300686h.
- Cooper M. M., (2015), Why Ask Why? J. Chem. Educ., 92, 1273–1279 DOI:10.1021/acs.jchemed.5b00203.
- Cooper M. and Sandi-Urena S., (2009), Design and validation of an instrument to assess metacognitive skillfulness in chemistry problem solving, J. Chem. Educ., 86(2), 240–245 DOI:10.1021/ed086p240.
- Fishovitz J., Crawford G. L. and Kloepper K. D., (2020), Guided heads-up: a collaborative game that promotes metacognition and synthesis of material while emphasizing higher-order thinking, J. Chem. Educ., 97, 681–688 DOI:10.1021/acs.jchemed.9b00904.
- Flavell J. H., (1979), Metacognition and cognitive monitoring: a new area of cognitive-developmental inquiry, Am. Psychol., 34, 906–911.
- Gess-Newsome J., (2015), A model of teacher professional knowledge and skill including PCK, in Berry A., Friedrichsen P. and Loughran J. (ed.), Re-examining pedagogical content knowledge in science education, New York, Routledge, pp. 28–42.
- Gess-Newsome J., Southerland S. A., Johnson A. and Woodbury S., (2003), Educational reform, personal practical theories, and dissatisfaction: the anatomy of change in college science teaching, Am. Educ. Res. J., 40(3), 731–767 DOI:10.3102/00028312040003731.
- González A. and Paoloni P. V., (2015), Perceived autonomy-support, expectancy, value, metacognitive strategies and performance in chemistry: a structural equation model in undergraduates, Chem. Educ. Res. Pract., 16, 640–653 10.1039/c5rp00058k.
- Graham K. J., Bohn-Gettler C. M. and Raigoza A. F., (2019), Metacognitive training in chemistry tutor sessions increases first year students’ self-efficacy, J. Chem. Educ., 96, 1539–1547 DOI:10.1021/acs.jchemed.9b00170.
- Hawker M. J., Dysleski L. and Rickey D., (2016), Investigating general chemistry students’ metacognitive monitoring of their exam performance by measuring postdiction accuracies over time, J. Chem. Educ., 93(5), 832–840 DOI:10.1021/acs.jchemed.5b00705.
- Henderson C., Beach A. and Finkelstein N., (2011), Facilitating change in undergraduate STEM instructional practices: an analytic review of the literature, J. Res. Sci. Teach., 48(8), 952–984 DOI:10.1002/tea.20439.
- Henderson C., Dancy M. and Niewiadomska-Bugaj M., (2012), Use of research-based instructional strategies in introductory physics: where do faculty leave the innovation-decision process? Phys. Rev. ST Phys. Educ. Res., 8(2), 020104 DOI:10.1103/physrevstper.8.020104.
- Repositioning Pedagogical Content Knowledge in Teachers’ Knowledge for Teaching Science, (2019), Hume A., Cooper R. and Borowski A. (ed.), Singapore, Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd DOI:10.1007/978-981-13-5898-2.
- Kadioglu-Akbulut C. and Uzuntiryaki-Kondakci E., (2020), Implementation of self-regulatory instruction to promote students’ achievement and learning strategies in the high school chemistry classroom, Chem. Educ. Res. Pract. 10.1039/c9rp00297a.
- Kelly R., (2014), Using variation theory with metacognitive monitoring to develop insights into how students learn from molecular visualizations, J. Chem. Educ., 91, 1152–1161 DOI:10.1021/ed500182g.
- Kruger J. and Dunning D., (1999), Unskilled and unaware of it: how difficulties in recognizing one's own incompetence lead to inflated self-assessments, J. Pers. Soc. Psychol., 77(6), 1121–1134.
- Mathabathe K. C. and Potgeiter M., (2014), Metacognitive monitoring and learning gain in foundation chemistry, Chem. Educ. Res. Pract., 15, 94–104 10.1039/c3rp00119a.
- Merriam S. and Tisdell E., (2016), Qualitative research: A guide to design and implementation, 4th edn, San Francisco, CA, Jossey-Bass.
- Mutambuki J. M., Mwavita M., Muteti C. Z., Jacob B. I. and Mohanty S., (2020), Metacognition and active learning combination reveals better performance on cognitively demanding general chemistry concepts than active learning alone, J. Chem. Educ., 97(7), 1832–1840 DOI:10.1021/acs.jchemed.0c00254.
- Pazicni S. and Bauer C., (2014), Characterizing illusions of competence in introductory chemistry students, Chem. Educ. Res. Pract., 15, 24–34 10.1039/c3rp00106g.
- Reinholz D. L., Ngai C., Quan G., Pilgrim M. E., Corbo J. C. and Finkelstein N., (2019), Fostering sustainable improvements in science education: an analysis through four frames, Sci. Educ., 103(5), 1125–1150 DOI:10.1002/sce.21526.
- Rickey D. and Stacy A. M., (2000), The role of metacognition in learning chemistry, J. Chem. Educ., 77(7), 915–916 DOI:10.1021/ed077p915.
- Sandi-Urena S., Cooper M. M. and Gatlin T. A., (2011), Graduate teaching assistants' epistemological and metacognitive development, Chem. Educ. Res. Pract., 12(1), 92–100 10.1039/C1RP90012A.
- Sandi-Urena S., Cooper M. and Stevens R., (2012), Effect of cooperative problem-based lab instruction on metacognition and problem-solving skills, J. Chem. Educ., 89(6), 700–706 DOI:10.1021/ed1011844.
- Schraw G. and Dennison R. S., (1994), Assessing metacognitive awareness, Contemp. Educ. Psychol., 17, 460–475.
- Schraw G., Crippen K. J. and Hartley K., (2006), Promoting self-regulation in science education: metacognition as part of a broader perspective on learning, Res. Sci. Educ., 36(1–2), 111–139 DOI:10.1007/s11165-005-3917-8.
- Sinapuelas M. L. S. and Stacy A. M., (2015), The relationship between student success in introductory university chemistry and approaches to learning outside of the classroom, J. Res. Sci. Teach., 52(6), 790–815 DOI:10.1002/tea.21215.
- Stanton J. D., Neider X. N., Gallegos I. J. and Clark N. C., (2015), Differences in metacognitive regulation in introductory biology students: when prompts are not enough, CBE Life Sci. Educ., 14(2), ar15–ar15 DOI:10.1187/cbe.14-08-0135.
- Swamy U. and Bartman J., (2019), Implementing metacognitive writing in a large enrollment gateway chemistry class, in Hartwell S. K. and Gupta T. (ed.), Enhancing retention in introductory chemistry courses: Teaching practices and assessments, ACS Symposium Series, American Chemical Society, vol. 1330, pp. 49–67 DOI:10.1021/bk-2019-1330.ch003.
- Tepner O. and Sumfleth E., (2019), Postscript: considerations from an external perspective, in Hume A., Cooper R. and Borowski A. (ed.), Repositioning pedagogical content knowledge in teachers’ knowledge for teaching science, Singapore, Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd, pp. 315–329.
- Thomas G. P., (2017), ‘Triangulation:’ an expression for stimulating metacognitive reflection regarding the use of ‘triplet’ representations for chemistry learning, Chem. Educ. Res. Pract., 18, 533–548 10.1039/c6rp00227g.
- Thomas G. P. and Anderson D., (2014), Changing the metacognitive orientation of a classroom environment to enhance students' metacognition regarding chemistry learning, Learn. Environ. Res., 17(1), 139–155 DOI:10.1007/s10984-013-9153-7.
- Veenman M. V. J., (2012), Metacognition in science education: definitions, constituents, and their intricate relation with cognition, in Zohar A. and Dori Y. J. (ed.), Metacognition in Science Education, Contemporary Trends and Issues in Science Education, Dordrecht, Springer, vol. 40, pp. 21–36 DOI:10.1007/978-94-007-2132-6_9.
- Visser R. and Flynn A. B., (2018), What are students’ learning and experiences in an online learning tool designed for cognitive and metacognitive skill development? Collect. Essays Learn. Teach., 11, 129–140.
- Wilson C. D., Borowski A. and van Driel J., (2019), Perspectives on the future of PCK research in science education and beyond, in Hume A., Cooper R. and Borowski A. (ed.), Repositioning pedagogical content knowledge in teachers’ knowledge for teaching science, Singapore, Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd, pp. 289–300.
- Woodbury S. and Gess-Newsome J., (2002), Overcoming the paradox of change without difference: a model of change in the arena of fundamental school reform, Educ. Policy, 16(5), 763–782 DOI:10.1177/089590402237312.
- Ye L., Eichler J. F., Gilewski A., Talbert L. E., Mallory E., Litvak M., Rigsby E. M., Henbest G., Mortezaei K. and Guregyan C., (2020), The impact of coupling assessments on conceptual understanding and connection-making in chemical equilibrium and acid–base chemistry, Chem. Educ. Res. Pract., 21(3), 1000–1012 10.1039/d0rp00038h.
- Young K. J., Lashley S. and Murray S., (2019), Influence of exam blueprint distribution on student perceptions and performance in an inorganic chemistry course, J. Chem. Educ., 96, 2141–2148 DOI:10.1021/acs.jchemed.8b01034.
- Yuriev E., Naidu S., Schembri L. S. and Short J. L., (2017), Scaffolding the development of problem-solving skills in chemistry: guiding novice students out of dead ends and false starts, Chem. Educ. Res. Pract., 18(3), 486–504 10.1039/c7rp00009j.
- Zohar A., (2012), Explicit teaching of metastrategic knowledge: definitions, students’ learning, and teachers’ professional development, in Zohar A. and Dori Y. J. (ed.), Metacognition in Science Education. Contemporary Trends and Issues in Science Education, Dordrecht, Springer, vol. 40, pp. 197–223 DOI:10.1007/978-94-007-2132-6_9.
- Zohar A. and Dori Y. J., (2012), Metacognition in Science Education, Contemporary Trends in Science Education, Dordrecht, Springer, vol. 40.
| This journal is © The Royal Society of Chemistry 2021 |