The contribution of learning motivation and metacognitive skill on cognitive learning outcome of students within different learning strategies

Abstract

The study of the correlation between learning motivation and metacognitive skill on students’ cognitive learning outcome simultaneously in classes taught by different learning strategies is still lacking. A correlational research was conducted to investigate the contribution of learning motivation and metacognitive skill simultaneously on cognitive learning outcome of 142 students studying biology in classes experiencing different learning strategies at Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Science, State University of Makassar, Indonesia. The learning motivation was measured by using motivation questionnaire adapted from Keller (1983), and metacognitive skill was measured integrated with cognitive test. The findings showed that contribution of learning motivation and metacognitive skills simultaneously on cognitive learning outcomes in PBL-RQA, PBL, RQA, and conventional learning strategies was very high. The contribution of metacognitive skills on cognitive learning outcome was much greater than the contribution of learning motivation. This finding research was contrary with the previous studies. Based on the facts related to metacognitive skills, learning should consider seriously the empowerment of metacognitive skills by implementing appropriate learning strategies. Further researches are needed to reveal the correlation between learning motivation on cognitive learning outcomes in different populations and measuring instruments.