METACOGNITION

Metacognition is associated with intelligence, is the ability to control one's cognitive processes which enables anyone to have a successful learning, it is associated with “thinking about thinking”, it involves active control on the congnitive process of learning.
Metacognition is the ability to allocate your own cognitive resources properly.

We are engaged with metacognition in many activities such as monitoring comprehension, evaluating and how to approach to a given learning task.

(Because metacognition plays a critical role in successful learning, it is important to study metacognitive activity and development to determine how students can be taught to better apply their cognitive resources through metacognitive control.)

We will find several distinctions between definitions of metacognition, but all of them emphasize the role of executive processes in the overseeing and regulation of cognitive processes.

The term "metacognition" is most often associated with John Flavell, (1979), acording to him, metacognition consists in Metacognitive knowledge and Metacognitive experiences or regulation.

Metacognitive  knowledge refers to acquired knowledge, that can be used to control cognitive processes and Flavell divides it in three categories which are:

- Knowledge of person variables = we all learn in different ways.

-Task variables = the nature of the task will afect each individual differently.

- Strategy variables = include knowledge about cognitive and metacognitive strategies, as well as conditional knowledge about when and where it is appropriate to use such strategies.

Metacognitive experiences it involves metacognitive strategies or metacognitive regulation, and are sequential processes that the student uses to control cognitive activities, and to ensure that a cognitive goal has been met.

Cognitive vs. Metacognitive Strategies

According to Flavell, the distinction between metacognitive knowledge and cognitive knowledge lies in how the information is used.

Cognitive Strategies are used to help an individual to achieve a particular goal, for example, understanding a text.

Metagognition, as we mention before, is referred to “thinking about thinking” so,

Metacognitive strategies are used to ensure that the cognitive goal has been met, for example, quizzing oneself to evaluate one´s understanding of the text.

Metacognitive and cognitive strategies may overlap in the same strategy, because both strategies are closely related and dependent upon each other.

Metacognition and Intelligence

Sternberg, (1984, 1986) maintains that the ability to appropriately allocate cognitive resources, such as deciding how and when a given task should be accomplished, is central to intelligence because metacognition is the ability to control one´s cognitive processes (self-regulation).

He refers to Meta components as executive processes in his triarchic theory of intelligence, and the Meta components are executive processes that control other cognitive components as well as receive feedback from them.

Metacognition and Cognitive Strategy Instruction

Most of the individuals are engaged in metacognitive regulation when confronted with a cognitive task but some of them are more metacognitive than others. Even though any normal individual is able to learn how to better regulate their cognitive activities.

Metacognition holds several implications for instructional interventions, such as teaching students how to be more aware of their learning processes and products as well as how to regulate those processes for more effective learning.