RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN GOAL ORIENTATION, CRITICAL THINKING, META-COGNITIVE AWARENESS AND SELF-REGULATED LEARNING OF IRANIAN STUDENTS

The aim of this study was to investigate the direction of the relationship between goal orientation, meta-cognitive awareness, and critical thinking in order to understand the impact of these three constructs on students’ self-regulation. The participants were 129 M.A. students of Tabriz University in Iran. Four types of questionnaire, named, meta-cognitive awareness inventory, Board’s self-regulated learning questionnaire, Elliotʹs A GQ Questionnaire, and California’s critical thinking inventory, were distributed among the students. Data were analyzed through correlation and regression .Though all four variables were highly correlated, the main finding was that goal orientation, meta-cognitive awareness can predict subsequent self-regulation .Because of the high dependency of the learners to the teacher in school years and the necessity to develop autonomous learners, the implications of the results for school years are discussed.