Metacognition Learning DOI 10.

1007/s11409-010-9062-4

The relationships and impact of teachers metacognitive knowledge and pedagogical understandings of metacognition
Nance S. Wilson & Haiyan Bai

Received: 18 December 2008 / Accepted: 28 September 2010 # Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2010

Abstract We know that metacognitive students are successful in school (Sternberg Instructional Science 26:127140, 1998). However, despite the recognition of the role of metacognition in student success, limited research has been done to explore teachers explicit awareness of their metacognition and their ability to think about, talk about, and write about their thinking (Zohar Teaching and Teacher Education 15:413-429, 1999). Therefore, the current study investigates teachers understanding of metacognition and their pedagogical understanding of metacognition, and the nature of what it means to teach students to be metacognitive. One hundred-five graduate students in education participated in this study. The data analysis results, using mixed research method, suggest that the participants metacognitive knowledge had a significant impact on his/her pedagogical understanding of metacognition. The results revealed that teachers who have a rich understanding of metacognition report that teaching students to be metacognitive requires a complex understanding of both the concept of metacognition and metacognitive thinking strategies. Keywords Metacognition . Metacognitive thinking . Teachers . Instruction . Learning . Pedagogical understanding The demands of the twenty-first century require students to know more than content knowledge; they must know how to learn. Learning is an active process that requires students to think about their thinking, or be metacognitive. Metacognition is a persons knowledge about the cognitive processes necessary for understanding and learning (Flavell,
N. S. Wilson (*) School of Teaching, Learning and Leadership, University of Central Florida, 4000 Central Florida Blvd., P. O. Box 161250, Orlando, FL 32816-1250, USA e-mail: nwilson@mail.ucf.edu H. Bai Department of Educational and Human Sciences, University of Central Florida, 4000 Central Florida Blvd., P. O. Box 161250, Orlando, FL 32816-1250, USA e-mail: hbai@mail.ucf.edu

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1976). It is not only about the strategies that students use, but also about students knowing when and how to use them. When a person is metacognitive, he/she demonstrates an awareness and regulation of his/her mental processes (Griffith & Ruan, 2005). A person who is metacognitive knows how to learn because he/she is aware of what he/she knows and what he/she must do in order to gain new knowledge. Metacognitive people exhibit the qualities of good readers (Griffith & Ruan, 2005; Randi, Grigorenko & Sternberg, 2005) and are successful in school (Sternberg, 1998). However, despite the recognition of the role of metacognition in student success, limited research has been done to explore teachers explicit awareness of their metacognition and their ability to think about, talk about, and write about their thinking (Zohar, 1999). Therefore, it is important to study teachers understandings of the act of teaching metacognition, the challenges they face in doing so, and the relationships between their metacognitive knowledge and pedagogical understanding of metacognition. Gaining the knowledge could improve our ability to plan staff development and teacher education programs. A necessary condition for teaching students to be metacognitive is a pedagogical understanding of metacognition. Pedagogical understanding refers to teachers knowledge regarding effective instruction for helping students achieve a goal, in this case becoming metacognitive. The present study investigates participants pedagogical understandings of metacognition, the nature of what it means to teach metacognition, and the relationships between the participants knowledge and pedagogical understandings of metacognition. The following sections begin with a discussion on metacognition in general. Next, is a discussion on pedagogical understandings of metacognition. The discussion that follows addresses why and how we evaluate teachers knowledge. The methods used for this study and the findings of the research are presented in the following section. Finally, teachers pedagogical understandings of metacognition from the perspective of this study and limitations of current study are discussed.

Theoretical framework Metacognition The concept of metacognition gained prominence in the 1970s with Flavell (1976). It has been defined as having knowledge (cognition) and having understanding, control over, and appropriate use of that knowledge (Tei & Stewart, 1985, p. 47) and involves both the conscious awareness and the conscious regulation of ones learning. A metacognitive person checks for understanding and regulates his/her understanding by using a metacognitive strategy. In reading, metacognition has been the focus of many research studies (Carrell, Gajduske, & Wise, 1998; Wenden, 1998) because reading comprehension is a complex cognitive process that requires thinking about what the reader knows and the application of the reading processes (Baker, 2002; Zhang, 2001, 2008). That is, metacognition refers specifically to the knowledge that readers have regarding the specific tasks for comprehension. Metacognitive readers monitor their understanding of text and control their understanding through the application of reading strategies and the evaluation of the effectiveness of the strategies. Research on reading strategies has focused on both specific strategies and the collection of strategies that readers use for comprehension. Research studies have recognized the importance of metacognition in differentiating between skilled and unskilled readers (Mokhtari & Reichard, 2002). According to Snow, Burns & Griffin (1998), skilled readers use their knowledge of the world to comprehend text literally as

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well as to draw valid inferences from texts, in their comprehension of words, and in their use of comprehension monitoring and repair strategies (p. 62). Their success most likely stems from their ability to recognize when comprehension breaks down and their ability to use strategies and/or techniques to improve/repair comprehension. Since metacognition is the key to comprehension, it must be a valued component in literacy instruction. Such instruction must address student background knowledge, knowledge and practice of metacognitive strategies, and knowledge regarding implementation of the strategies (Griffith & Ruan, 2005). Such instruction includes long term direct explanation and modeling of strategies followed by guided student practice with the strategies (Pressley, 2002). Students must understand the what, how, and when of the strategies to be applied (Paris, Lipson & Wixson, 1994). In other words, students need to know what the strategies are, how to implement them, and under what conditions to implement them. For instance, a reader who comes upon a confusing phrase needs to do something. If he/she simply keeps on reading despite a breakdown in understanding, he is not being metacognitive; if the student stops to ask a question and/or reread, he/she is applying a particular strategy for a particular purpose when it is needed. Despite the case for metacognitive literacy instruction, research over the last three decades has not demonstrated wide spread application (Pressley, 2002). This kind of instruction is complex and requires that teachers make metacognition the goal for literacy instruction (Baker, 2002). Contrary to this knowledge, Pressley, Wharton-McDonald, Mistretta-Hampston & Echebarria (1998) and Durkin (1978-1979) found that teachers are more likely to test comprehension than teach comprehension. These tests require that students process text after reading rather than being metacognitive during reading. The assumption of the teachers seemed to be that if their students simply read, read, and read, and then were tested, tested, and tested, they would become good comprehendersthey would become self-regulated readers who used comprehension strategies (Pressley, 2002, p. 303). The disconnection between the research which clearly indentifies the instructional models that make students metacognitive and the instruction in classrooms led us to wonder if teachers understood the pedagogical issues surrounding the teaching of metacognition. Teachers pedagogical understandings of metacognition The pedagogical understanding of metacognition refers to teachers understanding of what is necessary for the teaching of metacognition. Pedagogical understandings in general refer to the teaching strategies and/or instructional techniques that will be implemented in particular situations to achieve a teaching goal. Successful metacognitive literacy instruction addresses student schema, knowledge of strategies, and knowledge of the conditions for implementing strategies (Gourgey, 1999; Griffith & Ruan, 2005). A teachers pedagogical understanding of metacognition requires that they understand what is needed to successfully teach students to be metacognitive. The literacy research regarding metacognition clearly delineates the structure of instruction. Students need models of strategies in action, guided practice as they implement those models, and independent practice with the strategies (Clark & Graves, 2005). In addition, students need to see that strategies are flexible and that good readers implement different strategies depending on the purpose of the reading and the demands of the text (Pressley, 2002). The explicit instruction described above is the part of teachers pedagogical understandings of metacognition that includes instructional strategies. Yet, the implementation of those instructional strategies requires that teachers create a learning environment in which students are (1) explicitly required to apply metacognitive activities

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and (2) asked to reflect on their thinking processes (Leat & Lin, 2007). The explicit application means that students need time during reading to apply strategies. In addition, students need time to reflect on their thinking to determine the appropriateness of the strategy application. Instructional strategies that help teachers implement explicit instruction and provide students time for reflecting on the processes include: think alouds (Isreal & Massey, 2005), opportunities to practice thinking strategies (Schreiber, 2005), active discussions (Zohar, 2006), and the use the language of thinking (Tishman, Perkins & Jay, 1995). However, despite the strong theoretical studies, in practice many teachers lack sufficient knowledge about metacognition (Veenman, van Hout-Wolters & Afflerbach, 2006). Measuring teachers metacognitive knowledge and pedagogical understandings of metacognition Teachers understanding of what is necessary for teaching and learning has a strong impact on their practice (Aguirre & Speer, 1999; Borko & Putnam, 1996; Zohar, 2006). This impact affects students learning. Metacognition is not just a skill to be taught, but a disposition of what it means to think and learn (Harpaz, 2007). Thus, an analysis of teachers understandings of how to guide students in being metacognitive and the relationships between teachers pedagogical understandings of metacognition and their knowledge of metacognition could inform professional development. However, a robust review of the literature could not find an instrument designed to assess teachers metacognitive knowledge and the instructional strategies teachers valued in guiding their students to be metacognitive. Therefore, the authors created a Teacher Metacognition survey which is designed to assess a participants perception of his/her knowledge of metacognition, his/her pedagogical knowledge of metacognition, and his/her beliefs about practices that encourage students metacognition. The instrument was created based on the three components of the metacognition knowledge: declarative, procedural, and conditional knowledge (Schraw, 2001) and pedagogical approach for metacognitive strategies (Baylor, 2002). A teachers instruction of metacognition may be influenced by his/her individual understandings of what it means to teach metacognition (Baylor, 2002). This includes the use of reflection or debriefing techniques, think alouds, problem-solving activities, small and whole group discussions about process and explicit strategy instruction. A detailed study of teachers pedagogical understandings of metacognition requires that teachers have declarative, procedural, and conditional knowledge. Declarative knowledge is a teachers knowledge of what they should teach. Procedural knowledge is knowledge of how a teacher teaches something. Conditional knowledge is the understanding that the teaching of metacognitive strategies is dependent on the situation and that particular situations require the use of particular strategies. The research questions under investigation for this study are as follows: 1. How are the participants understandings of metacognition related to his/her perceptions of the instructional strategies that assist students in becoming metacognitive? 2. What instructional routines do participants value in teaching students to be metacognitive? 3. What are the causal relationships among participants conditional knowledge, declarative knowledge, and perceptions of procedural knowledge as parts of their pedagogical knowledge of the metacognition?

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Methods This study examined what can be inferred regarding participants pedagogical understandings of metacognition in terms of reading instruction and how that relates to metacognitive theory. The study utilized mixed method, which involved both quantitative and qualitative techniques to explore the answers to our research questions. Mixed method research is particularly useful for gaining a better and complex understanding of this particular topic. Qualitative methodology is utilized to explore the themes raised from the survey data and investigate how these themes influenced each other to answer the research questions from qualitative perspectives. Quantitative research is employed to discover the relationships among the factors revealed by the qualitative study and using statistical analysis to assess the direct and indirect effects of teachers metacognitive knowledge on their pedagogical understanding of metacognition; thus responding to our third research question. Participants The participants were 105 graduate students who were K-12 teachers majoring in different areas in education in the College of Education in a large southeastern university in the United States. Ninety-eight percent of the participants were female, which reflects the current gender composition of K-12 teachers across the nation. The participants had a range of teaching experiences, with 56% of participants having taught fewer than three years, 22% of participants having taught four to six years, and 22% of participants having taught more than six years. 13.3% of the participants had a master s degree, 34.4% had a bachelor s degree, and 13.3% had certificates in teaching or other degrees. Fifty percent of the participants were elementary education graduates with English as a Second Language Endorsement. This training included two courses in ESOL training and field work with students for whom English is not their first language. Secondary education majors from a variety of disciplines made up 22% of the study sample, including 15% English Language Arts majors. Three percent of the participants had received Bachelor s degrees in Exceptional Education. Twenty-five percent of the participants had undergraduate degrees in areas other than education. The demographic mix of the participants generally mirrored that of the general population in the public school district in the southeast area of the United States. The majority of the participants were under the age of 35, 81% of the total sample. Seventy-three percent of the participating teachers were students in the M.Ed. in Reading program for K-12 (Table 1).

Table 1 Participant demographics Area of undergraduate studies Elementary Education Secondary Education Exceptional Education Area of master degree 50% Reading Education 22% Educational Leadership 3% Mathematics Education Social Science Education Age of the participants 73% Under the age of 35 85% 10% Between 3545 7% Over the age of 45 5% 5% 13% 2%

A degree in an area other than education 25% Science Education

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Instrumentation The data for this study were collected using the researcher-created instrument. The survey includes two parts. Part One contains demographic questions followed by the two openended questions. Part Two is the Teachers Metacognition Scale (TMS) with 20 LikertScale questions. In order to assess the participants general understanding of the construct of metacognition, the participants were asked two open-ended questions before beginning the Likert scale section. The open-ended questions begin the section with the directions This section of the questionnaire is designed to help us gain a better understanding of the kinds of things that you do to teach students thinking skills and strategies. The questions included: 1. What is metacognition? 2. What are metacognitive thinking strategies? The questions served two purposes. One assures that teachers who participated in the study had a declarative understanding of metacognition. The first question, What is metacognition? determined if the participant had enough familiarity with the concept to define it. If the participants could identify a definition of metacognition derived from ideas in educational theory and research, they were included in the study. Ten cases were excluded from study because they left the question blank, wrote, I dont know, or responded to the question with a comment such as something a teacher does. The second open-ended question asked the participants What are metacognitive thinking strategies? This question gathered more detailed declarative knowledge from the participants regarding his/her understanding of metacognition in teaching. Five more participants were excluded from the study because they left the question blank or wrote, I dont know. Thus, the short answer questions led to the disqualification of fifteen participants. We also used these questions to attain a deeper understanding of the participants interpretations, thus allowing for some qualitative data analysis of the participants beliefs regarding the key concepts studied with the survey. TMS is designed to assess the participants self-perceptions regarding his/her understanding of metacognition and their pedagogical knowledge of the metacognition. In this section, each question asked participants about his/her modeling/demonstration of thinking processes, opportunities for practicing thinking processes, students sharing thinking processes, questioning strategies, providing feedback/debriefing practices, grouping practices, and the use of active discussions (See Table 2). The questions in this section deal with classroom structure and teaching actions. The questions use knowledge gained from Leat and Lins (2007) analysis of how teachers might encourage metacognition and transfer, Clark and Graves (2005) literature review of effective metacognitive literacy instruction, Torff and Warburtons (2005) and Zohars (1999) research on teachers use of higher order thinking strategies during instruction, Desautels (2009) perspectives on a thinking classroom, and Cummins, Steward and Blocks (2005) description of teaching strategies that help students use multiple strategies during reading. Questions for participants to evaluate students metacognitive processing are also included in TMS. The questions ask participants to rate the level of metacognitive thinking if students described actions during learning, planned a project, or wrote an essay (see Table 2). This section also addresses the types of teaching activities that as teachers, the participants believed required students to think about their thinking. The evaluation of activities is important in establishing the participants beliefs regarding the types of activities necessary for transfer of metacognition from explicit instruction activities to general use. Teachers will not take up

Pedagogical understandings Table 2 Likert-scale items

Items Item 1 Questions You are evaluating students metacognitive processing. Rate the level of metacognitive thinking if they spent most of their time planning the logistics of their final presentations before fully developing their models. A teacher is modeling for students. Rate the modeling script regarding its helpfulness in guiding students metacognitive thinking. Watch me think out loud while I try to predict what this story is going to be about. The title is Twisted, by Laurie H. Anderson. There is a picture of one of those flexible pretzel pencils on the cover. The pencil makes me think that this book will take place mostly in a school because pencils are used in schools. You are evaluating students metacognitive processing. Rate the level of metacognitive thinking if they are able to describe how and why they plan to use each of the six simple machines to create a roller coaster. You are evaluating students metacognitive processing. Rate the level of metacognitive thinking if they are aware of the reasoning involved in completing a Venn Diagram. When teaching students to use metacognitive thinking strategies, the teacher should recognize that strategies are general and thus do not worry about the task for which we implement the strategies. You are evaluating students metacognitive processing. Rate the level of metacognitive thinking if they are asked to complete an essay that describes the events of Shermans March on Atlanta including who, what, where, when and why. When teaching students to use metacognitive thinking strategies the problem-solving activities are more important than time for students to talk about the activities. When teaching students to use metacognitive thinking strategies the teacher should spend most of her time telling students how to fill out the strategy worksheet. When teaching students to use metacognitive thinking strategies, the teacher should ask inferential questions and check the accuracy of student answers. When teaching students to use metacognitive thinking strategies, the teacher should explain the mental processes used to answer inferential questions. When teaching students to use metacognitive thinking strategies, the teacher should increase their awareness of the strategy and understanding of its power by relating it to specific task objectives. When teaching students to use metacognitive thinking strategies, the teacher should debrief them after a lesson to review the thinking processes that helped students learn the content. You are evaluating students metacognitive processing. Rate the level of metacognitive thinking if they were able to describe their actions as being able to explain what was learned. When teaching students to use metacognitive thinking strategies, the teacher should provide time for students to talk about how they solved problem-solving activities. When teaching students to use metacognitive thinking strategies, the teacher should allow students to share their thinking. When teaching students to use metacognitive thinking strategies, the teacher should facilitate discussions on how problems are solved. When teaching students to use metacognitive thinking strategies, the teacher should model her thinking processes. When teaching students to use metacognitive thinking strategies, the teacher should allow students to generate questions regarding content. When teaching students to use metacognitive thinking strategies, the teacher should provide problem-solving activities for students. When teaching students to use metacognitive thinking strategies, the teacher should ask students to explain how they came up with their answers.

Item 2

Item 3

Item 4 Item 5 Item 6

Item 7 Item 8 Item 9 Item 10 Item 11 Item 12 Item 13 Item 14 Item 15 Item 16 Item 17 Item 18 Item 19 Item 20

research-based ideas, such as those regarding the teaching of metacognition, if they are presented as general principals that require them to turn them into specific practice (Black & Wiliam, 1998); thus this section addresses specific practices in which the participant believes he/she is requiring students to be metacognitive.

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The original survey questionnaire had 27 items on a 4-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 4 (strongly agree). Through a pilot study and expert examination, seven items were found to measure student knowledge of the metacognition instead of measuring teachers knowledge of metacognition or their pedagogical knowledge related to the metacognition; therefore, the seven items were deleted from the survey. The final version of the questionnaire is a 20-item survey. The instrument was evaluated for both validity and reliability. Validity of the instrument The content validity of the instrument was examined by experts in metacognitive theory and the literature review; therefore, the face validity of TMS was first achieved. To examine the construct validity, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was conducted. According to the metacognitive and pedagogical theory, the instrument was designed to measure four hypothetical constructs: declarative knowledge, conditional knowledge, procedural knowledge, and pedagogical knowledge. To confirm the construct validity measured by TMS, CFA was used by loading the twenty items on the four factors identified by the literature, namely, Conditional (conditional knowledge), Declarative (declarative knowledge), Procedural (procedure knowledge), and Pedagogical (pedagogical knowledge) (see Table 3). Table 3 revealed that the factor loadings for the four factors ranged from.24 to.54 for the factor of pedagogical, from.26 to.77 for the factor of conditional, from.34 to.56 for the factor of declarative, from.58 to.71 the factor of for procedural, and (see Table 3).

Table 3 Factor loadings of TMS using principal components (n =105) Items Item 1 Item 2 Item 3 Item 4 Item 5 Item 6 Item 7 Item 8 Item 9 Item 10 Item 11 Item 12 Item 13 Item 14 Item 15 Item 16 Item 17 Item 18 Item 19 Item 20 **p <.01, ***p <.001 Pedagogical .540*** .528*** .507*** .439*** .240** 0.202 -0.543 -0.179 -0.266 0.513 0.269 0.337 -0.057 0.087 -0.17 0.04 -0.318 -0.345 0.063 -0.401 Conditional -0.504 -0.052 0.19 0.075 0.063 .770*** .494*** .412*** .255** -0.245 0.038 -0.379 0.041 -0.128 -0.124 -0.045 0.011 -0.168 -0.024 -0.311 Declarative 0.419 0.484 0.288 0.286 0.096 0.002 0.143 0.156 0.271 .564*** .455*** .454*** .336*** -0.156 -0.072 -0.04 -0.16 0.064 -0.103 -0.121 Procedural 0.044 0.427 0.417 0.213 0.139 0.08 0.18 0.186 0.288 -0.112 0.099 0.363 0.302 .714*** .665*** .622*** .651*** .608*** .580*** .576***

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The loadings were significant with all p-values larger than.05. Sixty-one percent of the total variance was explained by the measurement model. This process confirmed the four hypothetical constructs measured by the 20-item TMS and provided strong evidence of the construct validity for TMS. Reliability of the instrument The internal subscale reliabilities were Cronbachs Alpha value of.76 for the pedagogical knowledge,.74 for declarative knowledge,.75 for the conditional knowledge, and.76 for the procedural knowledge. The internal reliabilities of the subscales were acceptable. The internal consistency of TMS was Cronbachs Alpha value of.75. Table 4 illustrates four factors and their coefficient alphas.

Data collection procedures Data for this study were collected through online survey questionnaires using web-based media (Zoomerrang). Demographic data and two open-ended questions for collecting qualitative data concerning teachers deep understanding of their pedagogical and metacognition knowledge were administered as Part One of the online survey. The quantitative data were collected using TMS as Part Two of the survey. All teachers participated in the study voluntarily with the understanding that they were given extra credit as an incentive. The survey questionnaire was designed to measure K-12 teachers self-perceptions of their metacognitive knowledge and their perceptions of their pedagogical knowledge of metacognition. All participants were asked to complete the survey during anytime in the Fall Semester 2008. Data analysis Qualitative analysis Data analysis occurred in multiple phases. First, the qualitative data was analyzed using an iterative approach. It was a recursive process in which the data were reviewed to determine the major themes in the written responses. The analysis involved discovering patterns, themes, and categories in the data (Creswell, 1994; Patton, 2002). Therefore, open coding of the participants responses to the open-ended questions was the first step to identifying themes and patterns in the data. We used Teschs (1990) systematic process of analyzing textual data by reading all textual data by (1) identifying topics; (2) clustering together similar topics; (3) abbreviating topics as codes; (4) developing categories; (5) looking for overlaps and interrelationship of topics; (6) assembling data in each category; (7) performing preliminary analysis of findings; and (8) confirming findings. First participants who did not answer the questions or who provided incomplete responses were excluded from the study. Then the open-ended questions were coded for patterns in responses. The responses were placed in a number of themes developed from the words of the participants including but not limited to thinking, awareness, strategies, and
Table 4 An illustration of four factors and coefficient alpha Factor # Factor 1: Pedagogical Factor 2: Conditional Factor 3: Declarative Factor 4: Procedural Variables Item 1, Item 2, Item3, Item 4, Item 5 Item 6, Item 7, Item 8, Item 9 Item 10, Item 11, Item 12, Item 13 Item 14, Item 15, Item 16, Item 17, Item 18, Item 19, Item 20 Alpha .76 .74 .75 .76

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comprehension. These themes were then analyzed by the researchers to determine more global patterns. The global patterns represented two large themes (1) metacognition is a construct that must be taught including declarative, procedural, and conditional knowledge with pedagogical knowledge and (2) metacognition is something for which teachers make students aware focusing on declarative knowledge as part of their pedagogical understanding of metacognition. Once themes were established, the data was sent to five teachers who had detailed knowledge regarding metacognition and metacognitive thinking strategies. The teachers were given the two themes as well as the open-ended responses for them to categorize the responses into the two large themes. The teachers were asked to apply a label of one of the two themes to each participants open-ended response. They coded the data independently and returned the information to the researchers through email. When the independently coded data was received from the teachers, the researchers used the information to determine inter-rater reliability for the open-ended responses. The agreement of the teachers assigning the responses to each theme was calculated using a mean score to find the inter-rater reliability as.89, which was the average value of agreement from each pair of raters. The final stage of qualitative analysis contextualized the results of the quantitative analysis of the responses on the Likert Scale questions. Using the factors established by the quantitative analysis the data was first grouped under the two global themes. Then using the factors as determined by the quantitative analysis explanations were reached using content analysis of the data focusing on the questions in each factor using the wording of the questions as well as participant responses; thereby contextualizing the quantitative analysis. Quantitative analysis The quantitative data were collected from the Likert scale questionnaire of TMS. The data were coded and entered by two trained research assistants into the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences V16.0 (SPSS) (SPSS Inc., 2007). The current research study used a structural equation modeling (SEM) with quantitative measurement to avoid misleading of regression estimates and secure correct conclusion about the relationship between the explored factors. SEM is employed to take measurement error into consideration. According to the theory and qualitative analysis results, the hypothetical structure equation model was constructed to explore the causal relationships among the hypothetical constructs in this study: Declarative (declarative knowledge), Conditional (conditional knowledge), Procedural (procedural knowledge), and Pedagogical (pedagogical knowledge). According to the literature on metacognition theory (Hartman, 2001) teachers understanding of metacognition is complex and depends on an interaction between declarative, procedural, and conditional knowledge. The metacognition theory assumes that teachers conditional knowledge influences procedural knowledge, which in turn also affects declarative knowledge, and further alters their pedagogical knowledge in metacognition. Procedural knowledge directly affects declarative knowledge and pedagogical knowledge. Declarative knowledge builds upon conditional and procedural knowledge and directly influences pedagogical knowledge. Based on the literature and theory, the Hypothetical Structural Model of Metacognition (See Fig. 1) was constructed. The four variables measured by TMS involved in this study were defined as follows:

& &

Pedagogical: participants pedagogical understanding of metacognition included his/her understanding of what it means to teach students to integrate declarative and procedural knowledge in solving problems of learning. Conditional: participants understanding regarding the conditions under which certain strategies are implemented

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Item 1 Item 2 Item 3 Item 4 Item 5 Item 10 Item 11 Pedagogical Declarative Item 12 Item 13

Item 14 Item 6 Item 15 Item 7 Conditional Procedural Item 16 Item 17 Item 18 Item 19 Item 20

Item 8 Item 9

Fig. 1 Hypothetical structural model of metacognition

& &

Declarative: participants declarative knowledge of metacognition reflect an understanding of the definitions of metacognitive strategies or making students aware of metacognitive strategies Procedural: participants providing assignments that require students to apply particular metacognitive strategies

Two stages of the SEM model were analyzed. For the first stage, data were analyzed to fit the Hypothetical Structure Equation Model of Metacognition to fit the quantitative data collected by the TMS. T-test, and ANOVA were conducted to test for independent variables. Because no significant group differences were found in terms of gender, teaching experience, or the educational degrees of teachers, these variables were excluded in the hypothetical model. The analyses were conducted using the Analysis of Moment Structures (AMOS) (Arbuckle, 2007). The second stage was to explore the best fitted SEM model using the quantitative data to study the relationships between the identified latent variables, Declarative, Conditional, Procedural, and Pedagogical to answer the third research question.

Analysis results The analysis sought to gather an understanding of the participants pedagogical understanding of metacognition; or what her/she believed was necessary for teaching students to become metacognitive. There were two themes uncovered by the analysis of the data qualitatively and quantitatively. The themes were informed by the qualitative analysis

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whose results were consistent with the previous research on metacognition and learning. The first theme demonstrated an understanding that teaching metacognition was an active process of engaging students in sharing thinking processes through the teaching of declarative, procedural, and conditional knowledge while making students accountable for using metacognitive skills. The second theme was the awareness of metacognition. Theme one: an active process requiring engagement Theme one was included two significant factors concerning when to teach students metacognitive thinking strategies. The theme was aligned with the qualitative data in which the participants described metacognition as thinking about their thinking and knowing how to think about solving a problem. This theme was matched with qualitative responses that involved active learning, such as teaching students to think about how you think/learn, teaching students strategies to improve understanding and task completion, and teaching students how to control ones cognitive processes. The common thread in this theme was teaching students that metacognition was an active process of thinking to solve a problem or learn something. The specific factors that compose this theme included: (1) teaching metacognition to students requires visible problem solving and (2) teaching conditional knowledge is key to teaching students to be metacognitive. Teaching students to be metacognitive requires visible problem solving (Pedagogical) Metacognition requires that the teacher guide students to help them become metacognitive while providing them with time to share their own thinking processes. Teachers participating in this survey identified a factor of pedagogical understandings of metacognition in which the teacher was key in providing a classroom where thinking about how you solve problems was visible. Participants demonstrated that when instructing students on the declarative and procedural aspects of metacognition they must be explicit and that students were held accountable for using metacognitive skills. In this theme, talk was central to learning. Participants indicated that in a classroom that encouraged students to use metacognitive thinking strategies; thinking was visible and shared by teachers and students. The following questions from the survey fell into this theme:

& & & & & & &

When teaching students to use metacognitive thinking strategies, the teacher should provide time for students to discuss their problem solving. When teaching students to use metacognitive thinking strategies, the teacher should allow students to share their thinking. When teaching students to use metacognitive thinking strategies, the teacher should facilitate discussions on how problems are solved. When teaching students to use metacognitive thinking strategies, the teacher should model her thinking processes. When teaching students to use metacognitive thinking strategies, the teacher should allow students to generate questions regarding content. When teaching students to use metacognitive thinking strategies, the teacher should provide problem-solving activities for students. When teaching students to use metacognitive thinking strategies, the teacher should ask students to explain how they came up with their answers.

Throughout this factor talk about thinking in which the teacher was the facilitator is central to the understanding of metacognition according to the participants. The

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responses of the participants indicated the teacher as a guide to building metacognitive thinking strategies for students. This was identified as both teachers and students shared thinking through talk as they generated questions, explained how they responded to questions, and interpreted how they solved problems. The participants acknowledged the importance of explicit modeling in teaching students to become metacognitive. This included explaining the mental processes, not simply telling about the processes. This concept went beyond teachers teaching for conditional knowledge or building talk in the classroom in that the participants identified the students as being able to be describe their metacognition as the key to teaching students to use metacognitive thinking strategies. The participants responses aligned with the literature on metacognition as an integration of declarative, procedural, and conditional knowledge. Pedagogical understanding of conditional knowledge (Conditional) The second factor discovered through the data analysis was related to the teacher as guide; but went further. In this theme, the participant described the importance of demonstrating how, why, and under what conditions to use metacognitive teaching strategies. Participants identified the strategy of debriefing as a tool for increasing student awareness of which strategies were helpful when working to achieve an objective. The following questions from the survey fell into this theme:

& & & &

When teaching students to use metacognitive thinking strategies, the teacher should explain the mental processes used to answer inferential questions. When teaching students to use metacognitive thinking strategies, the teacher should increase their awareness of the strategy and understanding of its power by relating it to specific task objectives. When teaching students to use metacognitive thinking strategies, the teacher should debrief them after a lesson to review the thinking processes that helped students learn the content. You are evaluating students metacognitive processing. Rate the level of metacognitive thinking if they were able to describe their actions as being able to explain what was learned.

In this factor the act of debriefing about strategy was central. The participants rating of this factor demonstrated a pedagogical understanding of metacognition that described metacognitive thinking strategies as evaluating and revising as you go, strategies to regulate and direct thinking and learning; and picking the best strategy for the task at hand. What made this theme unique was that it highlighted the understanding that metacognition requires an evaluation of the task and choosing the correct strategy in which to complete the task.

Theme two: touching the surface of metacognitive thinking strategies The second theme indicated that despite the robust identification of teaching metacognitive thinking strategies as an active process, which is also awareness of cognition. Awareness is different from active learning because it only asks students to know what or when a problem occurs. This theme had two factors that contributed to its development: (1) teaching metacognitive thinking strategies makes students aware and (2) teaching metacognitive thinking strategies was providing students with assignments that could lead to strategy use.

N.S. Wilson, H. Bai

Making students aware (Declarative) The topic dealt with telling students what to do and making them aware of processes. The participants responses in this theme were more about the recognition of metacognition rather than a teaching of how to be metacognitive. This theme was closely aligned with the qualitative responses, which identified metacognition as an awareness of thinking, rather than an active process of thinking about ones thinking. The questions that make up this factor were:

& &

& & &

You are evaluating students metacognitive processing. Rate the level of metacognitive thinking if they spent most of their time planning the logistics of their final presentations before fully developing their models. A teacher is modeling for students. Rate the modeling script regarding its helpfulness in guiding students metacognitive thinking. Watch me think out loud while I try to predict what this story is going to be about. The title is Twisted, by Laurie H. Anderson. There is a picture of one of those flexible pretzel pencils on the cover. The pencil makes me think that this book will take place mostly in a school because pencils are used in schools. You are evaluating students metacognitive processing. Rate the level of metacognitive thinking if they are able to describe how and why they plan to use each of the six simple machines to create a roller coaster You are evaluating students metacognitive processing. Rate the level of metacognitive thinking if they are aware of the reasoning involved in completing a Venn Diagram. When teaching students to use metacognitive thinking strategies, the teacher should recognize that strategies are general and thus do not worry about the task for which we implement the strategies.

This factor puts the teacher at the center in making students aware of their actions. The teacher was not having students talk about their thinking but simply had them recognize that they were thinking. Providing assignments (Procedural) This topic described activities or the values of certain activities that helped students gain metacognitive thinking strategies. The assignments required the students be metacognitive, but the processes did not guide students in metacognitive thinking. In this case, the framework was present, but factors such as debriefing and discussing thinking processes were absent. The questions that made up this factor were:

& & & &

You are evaluating students metacognitive processing. Rate the level of metacognitive thinking if they are asked to complete an essay that describes the events of Shermans March on Atlanta including the who, what, where, when and why. When teaching students to use metacognitive thinking strategies the problem-solving activities are more important than time for students to talk about the activities. When teaching students to use metacognitive thinking strategies the teacher should spend most of her time telling students how to fill out the strategy worksheet. When teaching students to use metacognitive thinking strategies, the teacher should ask inferential questions and check the accuracy of student answers.

This theme isolated declarative knowledge in that students were told about metacognition and to do it; but not told how or under what conditions they should be metacognitive. The results of this theme demonstrated that participants highly valued making students aware of metacognitive thinking processes and providing a framework in which they could

Pedagogical understandings

be metacognitive. Yet, what was missing in this theme was the teaching of metacognition. Throughout the study, responses indicated that participants juggled the need for integrating declarative, procedural, and conditional knowledge through active teaching and making students aware. Quantitative analysis results To study the SME model, we used the commonly-used model-fit indices as Chi-square, comparative fit index (CFI), normed fit index (NFI), incremental fit index (IFI), Akaike information criterion (AIC), parsimony comparative fit index (PCFI), and root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) (Baggozzi & Yi, 1988; Byrne, 1998; Jaccard & Wan, 1995; Kline, 1998). In the first stage, we fit the Hypothetical Model of Metacognition (Fig. 1) to our study data. The model fit indices revealed the moderate model fit (2 =184.61/df=155/p<.05, CFI=.93, NFI=.71, IFI=.94, AIC=334.63, PCFI=.76, RMSEA<.04); however, from the first stage model fit, we found that the latent variables, Declarative and Conditional, were insignificantly correlated with correlation coefficient of.01; therefore, we adjusted the model by removing the path between the two variables. This makes sense because one variable, Conditional is directly related to pedagogical knowledge whereas declarative only does not require an understanding of teaching. In the second stage, the modified structure model of metacognition (See Fig. 2) was finalized. Findings of analysis indicated that the Metacognition Model was successfully tested with excellent model fit (2 =169.35/df= 153/p=.17, CFI=.97, NFI=.90, IFI=97, AIC=323.35, PCFI=.78, RMSEA=.03) when comparing the model fit statistics between the final model and the hypothetical model, we saw that the fit indices were significantly improved in the final model with the insignificant p-value for 2, CFI, NFI, and IFI larger than.90, a smaller AIC, and PCFI value less than.5, and RMSEA less than.1. The significant model fit echoed the findings from the qualitative study results and theoretical assumptions about the relationships among the latent variables. The SEM analysis results (see Fig. 2) revealed that the teachers declarative knowledge, perceptions of procedural knowledge, and conditional knowledge had significant direct effects on their pedagogical understanding of metacognition. The analysis clearly presented that teachers who had more metacognitive knowledge were more likely to use the metacognitive strategies in their pedagogical understanding of metacognition. The quantitative analysis discovered that teachers conditional knowledge directly impacted their procedural knowledge and their pedagogical knowledge. The coefficient matrix reported that the teachers conditional knowledge can significantly predict teachers pedagogical knowledge with = .44 and also predicted procedural knowledge with = .10. Conditional knowledge is more closely linked to pedagogical knowledge in that it includes an understanding of when we use strategies, which is directly related to the conditions for teaching. Whereas procedural is simply the application of the strategy. The SEM results also disclosed that the teachers conditional knowledge only had an indirect effect on their declarative knowledge through the procedural knowledge as the mediator (see Fig. 2). Again, this connects with theory in that teachers must know what a strategy is and how to carry it out in order to apply the strategy appropriately. The analysis results revealed that teachers procedural knowledge significantly influenced their declarative knowledge with a strong, significant correlation ( = .82) and also determined the pedagogical knowledge ( = .34). Teachers set up assignments based on their understanding of the definitions of metacognitive strategies (declarative) and how to teach students to be metacognitive (pedagogical).

N.S. Wilson, H. Bai

-.35

.05

.26

e1 e2
-.27

Item 1
.26

d1
.22 .51 .56 .42 .11

d3
.51 .67 .57 .46

Item 10
.32

e10 e11 e12 e13

Item 2
.31

Item 11
.21

e3 e4 e5

Item 3 Item 4
.27

.20 .45 .24 .52

Pedagogical

Declarative
.33

Item 12
.11

Item 13

Item 5
.44 .17 .34 .82 .33

.12

Item 14
.37 .58

e14
-.22

e6 e7

Item 6
.24 .41 .61 .49 .60 .77 .01 .72 .10

Item 15
.52

e15
.26

Item 7

Item 16
.32 .57

e16
.28

e8

Item 8
.07 .25

Conditional

Procedural

Item 17
.66 .60 .43

e17
.34

e9

Item 9 d2

Item 18
.36

e18 e19 e20

-.45 .33

.65

Item 19
.43

Item 20

.21

.37

Fig. 2 Final fitted model with standardized effects at the.05 level

The declarative knowledge only determined the pedagogical practice with a weak but significant correlation ( = .11). The SEM analysis presented causal relationships of the three components of knowledge of metacognition and their pedagogical knowledge. The SEM results revealed that the conditional knowledge directly influences the procedural knowledge developed and self-perceptions of pedagogical knowledge and indirectly affects the declarative knowledge through the procedural knowledge as a mediator. The procedural knowledge directly influences the declarative knowledge and the selfperceptions of pedagogical knowledge. The declarative knowledge directly influences their self-perception of pedagogical knowledge. The SEM analysis connected with theory in that understanding when and where to apply metacognitive strategies (conditional knowledge) may determine what procedures (procedural knowledge) to follow and in turn what the strategies (declarative knowledge) to apply, and finally affects how they implement the knowledge of metacognition in practice (pedagogical knowledge). This finding provided us with empirical evidence of how teachers knowledge of metacognition related and influenced each other and encouraged us to explore further on teachers awareness of metacognition and their metacognitive thinking strategies.

Pedagogical understandings

Discussions and limitations This study examined the pedagogical understandings of metacognition teachers working towards a Masters Degree in Education. The pedagogical understandings of metacognition involved the nature of what it means to teach and how students learn strategies that encourage them to be metacognitive. Teachers understandings of metacognition appear to be related to their perceptions of the instructional strategies that assist students in becoming metacognitive. The participants in this study reported that metacognition was an active process and that teaching students to become metacognitive also was an active process that required engagement and practice. In addition, participants also considered metacognition as the awareness of processes and reported that providing appropriate assignments would assist students in becoming metacognitive. Thus, data demonstrated that the individual teacher s understanding of metacognition was related to the instructional strategies they perceived to be effective in helping students to become metacognitive. The research findings indicate that teachers may benefit from professional development on the differences between engagement and awareness when guiding students to implement metacognitive strategies. The second research question sought to understand the instructional routines that teachers valued in teaching students to be metacognitive. The data indicated that the participants valued a variety of strategies that aligned with the research on teaching. They valued demonstration, scaffolding, teaching conditional knowledge, and providing students time to demonstrate their learning. In addition, the participants recognized value in providing assignments that assisted students metacognitive thinking and taking the time to help students to be self-aware of cognitive processes. Teacher professional development and teacher education programs should implement practices that support an understanding in instructional routines that improve students metacognition. The study results also suggested that there are significant relationships among participants conditional knowledge, declarative knowledge, and procedural knowledge as parts of their pedagogical knowledge of the metacognition. As demonstrated in the analysis, participants pedagogical knowledge of metacognition is a combination between declarative, procedural, and conditional knowledge. There was a significant impact of participants procedural knowledge on their declarative knowledge, which affected their pedagogical knowledge of metacognition. The conditional knowledge significantly impacted on pedagogical knowledge. In addition the procedural knowledge also directly impacted on the pedagogical knowledge. The causal relationship between the different knowledge types related to the complexity of the concept of metacognition and indicated the foundations for teachers to have a pedagogical understanding of metacognition. In order to assist pre-service and practicing teachers in developing this complex pedagogical understanding of metacognition teacher educators should focus on the three factors and how they relate in the application of metacognition. Teachers rich understanding of metacognition included the concept of a metacognitive person as someone who monitors his/her understanding and uses strategies to regulate understanding. This study investigated K12 teachers understandings of metacognition regarding instruction. Since the participants in this study were predominately seeking advanced degrees in education, it was assumed that they had some familiarity with the instructional practices known to improve metacognitive thinking in students. This instruction includes direct explanation of the what, how, and when of strategies; modeling of strategies followed by scaffolded student practice with the strategies (Paris, Lipson & Wixson, 1994; Pressley, 2002). In short, the participants pedagogical understanding of metacognition included knowledge of how to scaffold and guide students, how to

N.S. Wilson, H. Bai

demonstrate thinking, knowledge of the strategies, knowledge of students, and knowledge of when to implement strategies (Griffith & Ruan, 2005; Gourgey, 1999). A teachers pedagogical understanding of metacognition requires that they understand what is needed to successfully teach students to be metacognitive. Thus teachers should make a point to include instruction on how to instruct students to become metacognitive. The participants in this study demonstrated that they had a rich pedagogical understanding of metacognition, but within this understanding there appeared to be contradiction. For instance, the group identified the teaching of metacognition as an active process; but also commented on the importance of making students aware of metacognition and providing assignments that may encourage students to be metacognitive. They identify the teaching of metacognition as both implicit and explicit. We propose that participants responses included both implicit and explicit aspects of instruction on metacognition because there may be discrepancy between what the participants know they should do and his/her practice. Since this survey did not ask participants to report what they do in the classroom, but to rate practices for teaching metacognitive thinking, the results may indicate that the participants know what is right, but want to give credit to what they do in the classroom. Many teachers are forced to follow mandated programs that may not reflect a rich pedagogical understanding of metacognition, or they feel stressed by the amount of material they need to cover. Perhaps the idea of providing a student with the time and space to discuss his/her thinking sounds good in theory, but may not reflect what they actually do. Teachers are absolutely willing to invest effort in the instruction of metacognition within their lessons, but they need the tools for implementing metacognition as an integral part of their lessons... (Veenman et al., 2006, p. 10). This is significant because previous research has noted that it is easier to transform teachers knowledge about subject area than their knowledge about the nature of teaching and learning (Borko & Putnam, 1996). These teachers appeared to have an academic understanding of what is necessary for teaching students to be metacognitive; but they also seem to value activities that are not highly correlated with helping students to become metacognitive. Therefore, professional development and graduate course work needs more emphasis on the instructional strategies that encourage metacognition. Teachers self-reports presented in this study provided some insight regarding the complex relationships between the concepts of metacognition and thoughts about teaching metacognition. We addressed what teachers understood metacognition is, and how they should teach it. We address procedural knowledge as providing assignments that require students to apply particular metacognitive strategies. Thus this study only studied the teachers declarative knowledge of the procedures for metacognition but did not directly measure what teachers actually did in their classroom. This is a limitation of the current study in that it did not address the actual employment of metacognitive skills during teaching, but simply presented the planning for them. In the future study, we would like to explore how to further accurately measure metacognition constructs and select larger representative samples to investigate the dispositions of metacognition in teaching.

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