Metacognitive Knowledge in Secondary School Students: Assessment, Structure, and Developmental Change

Abstract

The construct of metacognitive knowledge—that is knowledge on cognitive processes, was established as a determinant of cognitive development in the 1970s. Early research focused on the domain of memory development in pre- and primary school children. While research activities on metacognition have diversified over time, some core issues in the assessment, structure, and development of metacognitive knowledge still remain unresolved: (1) How can metacognitive knowledge be assessed? (2) How does metacognitive knowledge develop in secondary school? (3) Is metacognitive knowledge domain-specific or domain-general? (4) To what extent are developmental changes in metacognitive knowledge and achievement interrelated? We addressed these research questions within our longitudinal research project on the development of knowledge components. Our database included 928 German students who were tested on six measurement points (from Grades 5 to 9). The focus of the longitudinal study was on the assessment of metacognitive knowledge, as well as achievement in mathematics, reading comprehension, English as a foreign language, and the changes in these variables over time. In this chapter, the main results on these four research questions are presented, after a brief description of the historical research background. The results of the last assessment period are given special emphasis.