College Students' Current Status of Metacognitive Accuracy and Its Implications

Abstract

College students show tendency of becoming either overconfident or underconfident regarding their examination performances. It demonstrates a low level of metacognitive accuracy. This research investigated how accurately college students, particularly freshman pre-service teachers of early childhood education department in South Korea, predict their performance prior to two major exams during a semester. The major rationale of the study is to foster students' metacognition in higher education. 48 freshmen pre-service teachers participated in the study online, with two study tools implemented: namely, a question survey and an open-ended questionnaire. The results showed that the student participants' prediction on final exam was more accurate than that of midterm exam, showing moderately improved metacognitive accuracy, with a few exceptions. This paper suggested a few implications for higher education instructors regarding how to successfully implement metacognitive methods in class settings based on the findings.