Metacognitive awareness, knowledge and regulation of cognition factors among Lithuanian university students

Abstract

Purpose

The importance of metacognitive awareness in learning, on the one hand, and the necessity of considering demographic variables, on the other hand, have encouraged the researchers to conduct this research. This research aims to initially determine the relationship between the level of metacognitive awareness and demographic variables of students from three Lithuanian universities, such as age, gender and area of study.

Design/methodology/approach

The quantitative research strategy was applied in this study using the survey with the students scoring the Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (MAI). The research involved 296 students from three universities in Lithuania. Data were analysed using statistical analysis methods to compare different groups of subjects according to selected criteria.

Findings

It became evident that two demographic variables of age and the field of study had a relationship with knowledge of cognition. Conditional knowledge had a positive relation with the variables of age and the field of study. Procedural knowledge was the second area which had a relation with the area of this study. Therefore, it maybe be concluded that under specific circumstances, declarative and procedural knowledge is at the same level of performance while conditional knowledge revealed the highest relation with metacognitive awareness. Furthermore, no statistically significant difference was found with gender in all metacognitive subcomponents despite the initial assumption.

Research limitations/implications

One of the limitations of this study is that the research did not address the actual application of metacognitive strategies during teaching and learning. The research would benefit from in-depth class observation and triangulation of data from various sources. The teaching model should be tested in a larger population to obtain aggregated results for a vast population.

Originality/value

Results are significant in identifying students' cognitive abilities which can be attributed to various factors such as creativity, which in turn may efficiently foster students' potential. Metacognitive awareness can be developed by explicitly informing students about the importance of metacognition and life-long learning. Lecturers' role-modelling induce students to continuously assess, monitor, plan and reflect on their own learning process as well as to recognize cognition along with metacognitive prompts, questions, checklists, reports and discussion of topics in the learning process.

Citation

Butvilas, T., Žilinskienė, D., Bubnys, R., Colomer, J., Cañabate, D. and Masoodi, M. (2024), "Metacognitive awareness, knowledge and regulation of cognition factors among Lithuanian university students", Journal of Applied Research in Higher Education, Vol. 16 No. 5, pp. 1469-1485. https://doi.org/10.1108/JARHE-02-2023-0069