Research School Network: Metacognition and Self-regulated Learners: 3 Types of Knowledge The knowledge that helps foster self-regulated learners

When we reflect on some of the successful learners we have worked with, we can often see the behaviours that demonstrate self-regulation. They know the revision strategies that work for them; they know the distractions that hinder them; they know what they struggle with and how to address these weaknesses. Conversely, we can picture the pupils that never seem to have an organised school bag, study ineffectively or struggle to get started on a task.

According to the EEF, in the Metacognition and Self-regulated Learning guidance report, pupils will approach any learning task or opportunity with particular knowledge:

• Knowledge of their self and their own abilities
• Knowledge of effective and available strategies;
• Knowledge of the particular activity.

Those successful pupils are the ones who are fully equipped with that knowledge, so how can we help them to develop it?

Knowledge of self

An individual’s self-concept of ability is their own perception of how good they are at something e.g. a task or a subject and is shaped by experience. Self-efficacy is a pupil’s belief that they will be able to succeed at a particular task at the future. Both of these correlate with academic achievement i.e. those who think they are good often are, and those who think they will be successful often are. See The Impact of Non-cognitive skills on Outcomes for Young People Literature Review for more.

Unfortunately, a pupil who thinks that they are not good at something or won’t be successful at something, is less likely to be motivated enough to use some of the strategies that might be effective. For example, someone who thinks they are going to perform poorly on a test, may see no point in trying. Our job as teachers might be to engineer opportunities for success after a struggle, not by making things easier, but by modelling the thinking that successful pupils do to help them to progress. We don’t have to pretend they are good at something when they are not, but we can help support the perception that using certain strategies for improvement will lead to success in the future, even when they have not been successful in the past.

Structured reflection is also important. Instead of pupils simply accepting that they are good or bad at something because of their performance, they reflect and attribute results to approaches. In our post on this, we wrote about what Robert Zimmerman called the ​‘Self-reflection’ phase:

Knowledge of effective and available strategies

For pupils to know a range of effective strategies, then we need to teach them. We can’t necessarily expect pupils to come up with strategies themselves, and simply telling pupils about strategies may not be enough.

The seven-step model from the guidance report can be used to explicitly teach those strategies:

1. Activating prior knowledge; 
2. Explicit strategy instruction; 
3. Modelling of learned strategy; 
4. Memorisation of strategy; 
5. Guided practice;
6. Independent practice; and 
7. Structured reflection

For example, if you wanted to teach an essay planning format in English Literature, you might follow the format like this:

1. Activating prior knowledge: Discuss with pupils what they know about the text already and the focus of the question. Remind them of the assessment objectives.
2. Explicit strategy instruction: Explain how this particular essay planning format will be useful; consider comparing to other formats or what this offers versus no planning etc.
3. Modelling of learned strategy: Model the use of the format, talking through the process.
4. Memorisation of strategy: Through questioning and other methods, ensure that pupils understand the strategy.
5. Guided practice: Give another question. Model with lots of contributions from the class.
6. Independent practice; Pupils complete a further example independently.
7. Structured reflection: Encourage pupils to reflect on the effectiveness of the model. After writing an essay, it is also worth reflecting on how the plan contributed to the success of the final piece.

Such a process leaves far less to chance. The more strategies that pupils are comfortable and familiar with, the easier it is for them to choose the most useful strategy in any given situation.

Knowledge of the particular activity.

We have to be careful before we think of metacognition or self-regulation as some sort of generic master skill that can be applied in any situation. Of course, there may well be some transferable strategies or approaches. There may be some planning formats that can be adapted and used in another subject, there are some revision strategies that can be adopted elsewhere and the broad ideas of planning, monitoring and evaluating learning are relevant in many situations.

However, metacognition is task specific, and cannot be extricated from subject knowledge. While some general heuristics may be useful, they are meaningless if the subject knowledge is there and the knowledge of the task or activity is not there. In the essay example above, a planning format is no use without a knowledge of the text. Revision strategies such as elaborative interrogation are impossible without a developing schema of the subject.

So, ensure subject knowledge is there before approaching any metacognitive strategies.

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