بررسي تاثير پردازش فراشناختي برحل مساله‌

A Study of the Effect of Metacognitive Processing on Problem Solving

Introduction Over the past few years there has been a considerable body of research focusering on thc wider educational literature on metaeognition. Mctacognition was introduced by John Flavell in 1976. He defined metacognition as knowledge of cognition and active control and regulation of cognition. Several research studies have shown the positive role of metacognition in learning of different academic areas such as problem solving. For example, Cai (1992) observed that the possession of more metacogniti ve • skills dues have an effect on increased problem solving performance. Montague (1992) found similar results. Transfer of learning is also an important issue in academic areas. Pupil> need to be able to transfer their knowledge to different contexts, preferably non school and non domestic. According to Brown (1980). metucognitive knowledge helps transfer of learning since it causes adaptation to new situation. On the other hand, some other studies (Mcformid, 1993) have found no effect of metacognitive instruction on problem solving skills. An explanation is that these kinds of instruction have no focus on the processes of acqumng metacognition-metacognitive processing. Metacognitive processing was defined as self-monitoring. self-evaluation and self- 18 regulation of learning (Berardi-Coletta, ct ul.. 1995). Therefore, it is necessary to study mctucognitive processing. The aim of this study is to investigate the role of metacognitivc processing in the learning and transfer of learning of problem solving among high school students. Research Questious 1. Does metacognitive processing enhance learning of problem solving" 2. Does metacognitive processing enhance transfer of learning of problem solving" 3. Does metacognitive processing enhance discovery of the rules and principles of problem solving? It was hypothesized that metacognirive processing would result in enhanced learning and transfer of learning in the area of problem solving. Also, discovery of rules of problem solving is enhanced by metacogniuve processing. Methuds Participants 1ll this study included 120 girls in the first grade of high school. They were randomly assigned into four groups 130 students in each group): experimental group of explicit rnetacognitive processing, experimental group of implicit meracognitive processing. control group of thinking- aloud. and silent control group. The popular Tower of Hanoi Task was administered as learning and transfer of learning tasks. The 2-disk version of the task was administered to • Instruct the participants. The ʹI-through 5-disk versions of The Tower of Hanoi problem were used as learning tasks and the 6-disk version of it as transfer of learning task. During the learning tasks and before each movement the explicit metacognitive group were answering experimenterʹs questions about the reason of movement. These questions stimulated metacogniuve processing explicitly. The implicit metacognitive group were stating the reason of their move in the form of "if. .. then ... " sentences. before each movement. The first control group were talking aloud during problem solving and the second one were silent. The experiment was administered individually. The participants were 19 provided with short general instructions on the tasks. All sayings of the participants were tape recorded and were subjected to protocol analysis. Two independent raters classified all sentences into three categories: process level (includes sentences about planning, goal analysis, and evaluation of strategies), problem level (includes sentences ahout goals and rules of task, present state of problem. and evaluation of problem), and personal level (includes positive and negative evaluation of oneself, reflecting on the process, and asking questions). The coefficient of intcr-r.uer reliability for 30 students was .91. Thc time spent for solving problems was assessed by chronometer. Results According to ANOVA, in 3-, 4-. and 5-disk versions, both experimental gronps made significantly fewer error moves (F3, 116=5.32, P