Author: John Santini
Santini, John, 2023 Nurturing the desire to be challenged: a framework for sustaining the motivation to persist using metacognitive thinking in a senior secondary STEM environment., Flinders University, College of Education, Psychology and Social Work
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This study examines the relationship between the need for metacognition, defined as one’s thinking about thinking, when students engage in effortful cognitive activity and how it affects variables associated with resilience and motivation. Students completed measures of meta-cognitive use and motivation, before, during, and after completing units of work where meta-cognitive strategies were explicitly embedded.
This study was conducted to solve an existing problem at a particular school where a number of students, identified as high achievers, were not considering or persisting with the science and mathematics courses offered.
The same problem has been reported as a world-wide trend (Mather & Tadros, 2014) and a plethora of actions have been attributed as the possible cause (Dinham, 2011; Mather & Tadros, 2014; Rotigel & Fello, 2004). These studies were used to distil the common constructs and this study proceeded to explore what can be done to mitigate the trend at the school.
The action-research methodology presents a framework for understanding and discussing the role of metacognition when cognition becomes problematic; particularly the effect that metacognitive thinking has in maintaining motivation and persistence when cognitively advanced students are challenged and tempted by less demanding academic pathways.
Keywords: Metacognition, persistence, action-reseach, motivation
Subject: Education thesis
Thesis type: Professional Doctorate
Completed: 2023
School: College of Education, Psychology and Social Work
Supervisor: Associate Professor Julie Clark