Metacognitive awareness level of Pysics Teachers in Johor Bahru

Abstract

Research on metacognition has been mostly done focusing on students compared to teachers. It is a trend found in both national and international literature. Research on teachers’ metacognition is important because they are the main core of education and their metacognition can influence the teaching practiced. Therefore, this research was done to identify the level of metacognitive awareness of Physics teachers in Johor Bahru. Besides, the differences in scores across years of teaching and gender were also discovered. 70 teachers in Johor Bahru were involved. The instrument used was the Metacognitive Awareness Inventory for Teachers (MAIT) that has been given out online. Result from the study indicates that the respondents obtain a higher score in metacognitive regulation (4.04) compared to metacognitive knowledge (4.01). It was also found that respondents with teaching experience lower than 5 years have a higher min rank (min = 35.82) compared to those with more than 5 years experience (min = 35.38) with an insignificant difference (U=478.5, p=.937). Men have higher metacognitive scores (min = 42.68) compared to women (min = 32.82). Statistical test indicates significant difference for gender (U=348, p=.034). Overall, teachers’ metacognition was found to be at a good level. Further study needs to be done to find out more about teachers’ metacognition using different approaches. The MAIT instrument that has been translated in this study is suitable to be adopted into researching teachers’ metacognition in general for a population. This study can also be adapted for a preliminary framework in introducing metacognition element into teachers’ education.