Impact Assessment of Self-directness and Meta-cognitive Skills on Agricultural Students’ Academic Achievement in Iran

Students' academic achievement is one of main indicators in evaluating higher agricultural education. One of the most effective strategies in terms of academic achievement is to reinforce self-directness and meta-cognitive skills. The main objective of this study was to evaluate the effects of elf-directness and metacognitive skills on the academic achievement of agriculture students in Iran. This research was a descriptive-correlational study using a survey technique. The instrument adopted in this study was a questionnaire which validity was confirmed by a group of curriculum developers and educational planning specialists in the higher agricultural education system. Cronbach's alpha coefficients were used to determine the reliability of this scale. Cronbach's alpha values for different variables showed the acceptable reliability of this instrument (0.74≤α≤0.96). The statistical population of the study consisted of the agriculture students in Iran (N=236973). The sample size was estimated to be 150 persons by using Cochran statistics and two-stage sampling method (cluster sampling and proportional stratified random sampling). The results showed that the variables self-directness, metacognitive skills, and social conditions had a positive and significant effect on the academic achievement among these students. In total, they could predict a significant percentage (68.1%) of variance for the variables academic achievement.