Prior studies have not tested whether an instructional intervention aimed at improving metacognitive skills results in changes to student metacognition, motivation, learning, and future learning in the classroom. We examined whether a 6-hr intervention designed to teach the declarative and procedural components of planning, monitoring, and evaluation could increase students’ metacognition, motivation, learning, and preparation for future learning for middle school science. Forty-six eighth-grade students were randomly assigned to either a control group, which received extensive problem-solving practice, or an experimental group, which received more limited problem-solving practice along with metacognitive instruction and training. Results revealed that those who received the metacognitive instruction and training were less biased when making metacognitive judgments, p = .03, d = 0.65, endorsed higher levels of motivation after instruction (e.g., there was a large effect on task value, p = .006, d = 0.87), performed better on a conceptual physics test, p = .03, d = 0.64, and performed better on a novel self-guided learning activity, p = .007, d = 0.87. This study demonstrates that metacognitive instruction can lead to better self-regulated learning outcomes during adolescence, a period in which students’ academic achievement and motivation often decline.

A gulf exists between prior work testing metacognitive instructional interventions and teacher practices that may support metacognition in the classroom. To help bridge this gulf, we designed an observational protocol to capture whether and how teachers provide metacognitive support in their talk and examined whether these supports were related to student learning. We examined four features of metacognitive support, including the type of metacognitive knowledge supported (personal, strategy, or conditional), the type of metacognitive skill supported (planning, monitoring, or evaluating) the type of instructional manner in which the support was delivered (directives, prompting, or modeling), and the type of framing (problem specific, problem general, or domain general), during three types of instructional activities (individual, group, or whole-class instruction). We compared teacher talk from 20 middle school mathematics classrooms with high growth in conceptual mathematics scores with teacher talk from 20 classrooms with low growth. For each of these classrooms, we examined the amount of teacher talk that supported metacognition during one regular class period. Observations revealed that the high-conceptual growth classrooms had more metacognitive supports for personal knowledge, monitoring, evaluating, directive manners, and domain-general frames than the low-conceptual growth classrooms. We discuss the implications of those observations for bridging research on metacognition to teacher practice.

In three experiments, we compared the effectiveness of rainbow writing and retrieval practice, two common methods of spelling instruction. In experiment 1 (n=14), second graders completed 2 days of spelling practice, followed by spelling tests 1 day and 5 weeks later. A repeated measures analysis of variance demonstrated that spelling accuracy for words trained with retrieval practice was higher than for words trained with rainbow writing on both tests (η p 2 =.49). In experiments 2 (second graders, n=16) and 3 (first graders, n=12), students completed 2 days of spelling practice followed by a spelling test 1 day later. Results replicated experiment 1; spelling accuracy was higher for words trained with retrieval practice compared with rainbow writing (η p 2 =.42 and .64, respectively). Furthermore, students endorsed both liking and learning from retrieval practice at least as much as (and sometimes more than) rainbow writing. Results demonstrate that retrieval practice is a more useful (and as engaging) training method than is rainbow writing and extend the well-established testing effect to beginning spellers.Spelling is a crucial skill that students learn during the first several years of formal schooling. Despite teachers endorsing the importance of spelling instruction and reporting an average of 90 classroom minutes per week on it, they report that more than 25 % of students struggle with Educ Psychol Rev

Maintaining learning engagement throughout adolescence is critical for long‐term academic success. This research sought to understand the role of metacognition and motivation in predicting adolescents' engagement in math learning over time. In two longitudinal studies with 2,325 and 207 adolescents (ages 11–15), metacognitive skills, interest, and self‐control each uniquely predicted math engagement. Additionally, metacognitive skills worked with interest and self‐control interactively to shape engagement. In Study 1, metacognitive skills and interest were found to compensate for one another. This compensatory pattern further interacted with time in Study 2, indicating that the decline in engagement was forestalled among adolescents who had either high metacognitive skills or high interest. Both studies also uncovered an interaction between metacognitive skills and self‐control, though with slightly different interaction patterns.

Learning strategies that create "desirable difficulties" by slowing or hindering improvement during learning often produce superior long-term retention and transfer (Bjork, 1994;Bjork, 1999). Despite the desirability of difficulties for learning, many learners choose not to use the learning strategies and/or disengage when they are implemented by a teacher. Knowledge of these learning strategies is necessary but insufficient for behavior change-learners must be motivated to embrace or, at minimum cope, with difficulties. To identify ways to help students engage with learning strategies that produce desirable difficulties, the present article briefly reviews five areas of psychological research on motivation that provide strategies for increasing engagement and persistence: finding value, reducing cost, reframing appraisals and attributions, creating appropriate challenges, and providing choice. Looking forward, there is a clear need for empirical work to investigate and theoretical frameworks to explain the interplay between motivation and learning strategies that create desirable difficulties.