Livingston Summary on Metacognition

Taken from Web Article - Jennifer A. Livingston. "Metacognition: An Overview" http://www.gse.buffalo.edu/fas/shuell/CEP564/Metacog.htm

The term metacognition is most commonly associated with John Flavell (1979).

Metacognition (Flavel)

• Metacognitive Knowledge
• Metacognitive Control
  • person variables -- how people learn & process
  • task variables -- nature of the task & the demands it will place on you
  • strategy variables -- knowledge of meta/cognitive strategies and when they are appropriate

Distinction to draw between the two:

"Knowledge is considered to be metacognitive if it is actively used in a strategic manner to ensure that a goal is met. For example, a student may use knowledge in planning how to approach a math exam: "I know that I (person variable) have difficulty with word problems (task variable), so I will answer the computational problems first and save the word problems for last (strategy variable)." Simply possessing knowledge about one's cognitive strengths or weaknesses and the nature of the task without actively utilizing this information to oversee learning is not metacognitive."