From Pandemic to New Normal: Portraying EFL Graduates’ Metacognitive Strategy in Thesis Writing

The recent paper aims to figure out how students apply their metacognitive strategies of thesis writing in the COVID-19 pandemic. This study employs an explanatory case study design with 13 English As a Foreign language (EFL) graduates of an Indonesian university involving in this study. Questionnaires and semi-structured interview methods were used for collecting information. The data were then qualitatively analyzed using Miles, Huberman, and Saldana interactive model. The findings indicate that individual differences and thesis supervisors' involvement stimulated varied metacognitive strategy use in thesis writing. The challenges, inefficient time management, supervision system, technological issues, and negative disruptive emotions were attributed to delayed thesis completion in the pandemic. It indicates that the metacognitive experience represented by negative psychological factors profoundly affects students’ metacognitive strategies. Hence, promoting students' positive affective states are essential to achieve the expected writing outcomes.

Metacognitive Awareness of Difficulty in Action Selection: The Role of the Cingulo-opercular Network

The question whether and how we are able to monitor our own cognitive states (metacognition) has been a matter of debate for decades. Do we have direct access to our cognitive processes, or can we only infer them indirectly based on their consequences? In the current study, we wanted to investigate the brain circuits that underlie the metacognitive experience of fluency in action selection. To manipulate action-selection fluency, we used a subliminal response priming paradigm. On each trial, both male and female human participants additionally engaged in the metacognitive process of rating how hard they felt it was to respond to the target stimulus. Despite having no conscious awareness of the prime, results showed that participants rated incompatible trials (during which subliminal primes interfered with the required response) to be more difficult than compatible trials (where primes facilitated the required response), reflecting metacognitive awareness of difficulty. This increased sense of subjective difficulty was mirrored by increased activity in the rostral cingulate zone and the anterior insula, two regions that are functionally closely connected. Importantly, this reflected activations that were unique to subjective difficulty ratings and were not explained by RTs or prime–response compatibility. We interpret these findings in light of a possible grounding of the metacognitive judgment of fluency in action selection in interoceptive signals resulting from increased effort.

Metacognition, entrepreneurial profile, and perception of success

This study sought to identify to what extent metacognition has an effect on perceived success, mediated by the entrepreneurial profile. The sample we analyzed involved 194 alumni from Business Administration, Accounting, and Economics programs from public and private higher education institutions in the state of Sergipe. The procedures involved the use of structural equation modeling and the results indicated that goal orientation has a significant direct and indirect relationship with perceived success. Metacognitive knowledge and metacognitive experience have significant indirect relationships with perceived success, and this relationship takes place with the "self-realization" and "leader" dimensions of the entrepreneurial profile. As this study's contribution, we identified metacognitive characteristics that can be improved to enhance the perception of success, such as: frequently defining goals, understanding the relationship between tasks and goals, setting specific goals, frequently evaluating a task's progress, selecting the best option for problem solving, using assertive strategies in the past, gaining prior knowledge regarding a task, breaking problems into small parts, thinking before performing a task, using different strategies, organizing time and information, selecting important information, and using intuition to formulate strategies.

The ‘bullshit blind spot’: The roles of overconfidence and perceived information processing in bullshit detection

The growing prevalence of misinformation (i.e., bullshit) in society carries with it an increased need to understand the processes underlying many people’s susceptibility to falling for it. Though several cognitive and metacognitive variables have been found to be associated with a greater propensity to falling for bullshit, little attention has been paid to people’s perceptions of and confidence in their own ability to detect it and the phenomenology of the thinking processes they employ when evaluating misleading information. Here we report two studies (N = 412) examining the associations between bullshit detection accuracy, confidence in one’s bullshit detection abilities, and the metacognitive experience of evaluating potentially misleading information. We find that people with the poorest bullshit detection performance grossly overestimate their detection abilities and significantly overplace those abilities compared to others. Additionally, highly bullshit receptive people reported using both intuitive and reflective thinking processes when evaluating misleading information. These results suggest that some people may have a “bullshit blind spot” and that traditional miserly processing explanations of receptivity to misleading information may be insufficient to fully account for these effects.

The Impact of a Metacognitive Intervention using I.M.P.R.O.V.E. Model on Grade 7 Students’ Metacognitive Awareness in Mathematics

This study sought to investigate the impact of a Metacognitive intervention on Grade 7 students’ Metacognitive awareness in Mathematics. Using Concurrent Action Research as the research design of the study, one heterogeneous Grade 7 class from a public high school in Metro Manila underwent a six-week Metacognitive Intervention using a structured Metacognitive instructional model called, I.M.P.R.O.V.E. (Introducing the new concepts; Metacognitive questioning; Practicing; Reviewing and Reducing difficulties; Obtaining mastery; Verification; and Enrichment). The quantitative aspect of the research included the assessment of the Metacognitive Awareness before and after the intervention period using the Jr. Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (Jr. MAI). On the other hand, student interviews, Focus Group Discussions (FGD) with the observers, and learners’ outputs were examined in the qualitative aspect of the research. Results revealed that there were large, and huge significant differences between the pre-test and post-test results of the Jr. MAI. Moreover, the intervention gained affirmative responses from the teacher observers and student participants as a good intervention tool to enhance students’ Metacognitive Awareness in Mathematics. Emergent issues on the utilization of the intervention were discussed such as: Questions that direct student learning; Enrichment of students’ Metacognitive experience; and Use of reflections in Mathematics. Recommendations on improving the model utilization were also discussed which included: selection of topics where the I.M.P.R.O.V.E. is appropriate to be used; and emphasis of objectives as “today’s target” in classrooms

Μεταγνωστικές εμπειρίες στην προοπτική μνήμη νεότερων και μεγαλύτερων σε ηλικία ατόμων: παίζει ρόλο η απερισκεψία;

The present study aimed to examine metacognitive experiences in situations with respect to perspective memory (PM). The metacognitive experiences studied were blank in mind, “tip of the tongue”, mind wandering, and mind blanking. Young, middle-aged and elderly people of both sexes participated in this study. We also studied affect, cognitive failures and mindlessness as personality traits, which were also used as correlation factors of metacognitive experiences. The results of the current study showed that personality traits are related to metacognitive experience of blank in the mind, but not with performance in the PM task. Moreover, the results showed that there is a decline in task performance in older people, but no effect on metacognitive experiences. There were also high correlations between the metacognitive experiences of mind wandering, blank in mind and mind blanking, but there were no correlations between them and the “tip of the tongue” experience. Finally, regarding the correlation of affect with the task performance and metacognitive experiences, it was found that neutral affect correlates positively with mind wandering and blank in mind and negatively with mind blanking self-reports, but it does not necessarily correlate with lower task performance.

A Study of Digital Interactive Technology and Design Mode Promoting the Learners’ Metacognitive Experience in Smart Education

The effectiveness of learners’ learning in smart education is largely improved by combined with digital interactive technology and design recent years. However, most traditional smart education ignore the importance of improving learners’ metacognition experience by digital interactive technology and design. This paper focuses on the research of digital interactive technology promoting teaching reform to inspire the learners’ metacognition experience, and interactive design mode inspiring the development of smart education platform. Digital interactive technology + interactive design mode + smart education has become an important trend of smart education reform.

Metacognitive knowledge and experience across multiple cognitive domains in euthymic bipolar disorder

Background Metacognitive knowledge (MK; general awareness of cognitive functioning) and metacognitive experience (ME; awareness of cognitive performance on a specific cognitive task) represent two facets of metacognition that are critical for daily functioning, but are understudied in bipolar disorder. This study was conducted to evaluate MK and ME across multiple cognitive domains in individuals diagnosed with bipolar disorder and unaffected volunteers, and to investigate the association between metacognition and quality of life (QoL). Methods Fifty-seven euthymic participants with bipolar disorder and 55 demographically similar unaffected volunteers provided prediction and postdiction ratings of cognitive task performance across multiple cognitive domains. Self-ratings were compared to objective task performance, and indices of MK and ME accuracy were generated and compared between groups. Participants rated QoL on the Quality of Life in Bipolar Disorder Scale (QoL.BD). Results Metacognitive inaccuracies in both MK and ME were observed in participants with bipolar disorder, but only in select cognitive domains. Furthermore, most metacognitive inaccuracies involved underestimation of cognitive ability. Metacognitive indices were minimally associated with medication variables and mood symptoms, but several indices were related to QoL. Conclusions Individuals with bipolar disorder demonstrate inaccuracies in rating their cognitive functioning and in rating their online cognitive task performance, but only on select cognitive functions. The tendency to underestimate performance may reflect a negative information processing bias characteristic of mood disorders. Metacognitive variables were also predictive of QoL, indicating that further understanding of cognitive self-appraisals in persons with bipolar disorder has significant clinical relevance.