Exploring the Metacognitive Skills of Secondary School Students’ Use During Problem Posing

Abstract

The purpose of our study was to explore students’ use of metacognitive skills during problem posing activities. This qualitative research explored the metacognitive skill of 21 secondary school students in a rural Anambas Indonesia while posing individually mathematical problems. Thinking-Aloud protocol was conducted during the problem posing activities. The audio recordings of Thinking-Aloud protocol for the students provided the data to address this question. Analysis of their written work and Thinking-Aloud protocols provided evidence of how students used metacognitive skills while problem posing and revealed different levels of these skills. Analyses of the Thinking-Aloud protocol also provided evidence for the metacognitive skills associated with planning, monitoring, and evaluation. The students used planning and monitoring skills equally. Furthermore, different levels of sophistication of planning were apparent. Students who combined these metacognitive skills demonstrated a higher level of monitoring. However, from our analyses that there was considerable overlap in the metacognitive activities associated with monitoring and evaluation.

Cognitive and Metacognitive Strategies in Problem-Posing Tasks in the Context of Science

“…A similar coding process was carried out for the strategy usage purposes of the participants. In the process of coding the purposes of the participants for using the strategies, tasks in the problem-posing steps (Polya, 1957), sub-dimensions of the Problem-Posing Skills Scale proposed by Pilten, Isik and Serin (2017), planning, monitoring, and evaluation processes of metacognitive regulation (Karnain et al, 2014), metacognitive awareness elements (Schraw & Dennison, 1994), cognitive prompts such as organization and elaboration, and metacognitive prompts such as monitoring, self-diagnosis, and planning remedial processes that encourage the use of cognitive and metacognitive strategies (Roelle et al, 2017) were used. Attention was paid to the conceptual nature of the names of the strategies and their intended use.…”

“…While the students use metacognitive strategies in this process, they are constantly engaged in how to understand information, improve a problem posing plan, formulate problems, solve problems and examine solutions (Taufik, Pagiling, Mayasari, Munfarikhatin, Natsir & Dadi, 2019). Although metacognitive strategies play an important role in problem-posing (Ghasempour et al, 2013), the literature on metacognition and problem-posing is very limited (Karnain, Bakar, Siamakani, Mohammadikia & Candra, 2014). Aydoğdu and Türnüklü (2023) 2023) investigated the predictive relations between reading strategies metacognitive awareness and problem posing skills of seventh grade students.…”

“…Therefore, in this study, the participants were asked to think aloud while posing problems to define the strategies they used cognitively or metacognitively and determine their purposes for using strategies. While preparing the semi-structured interview form, which was used to determine the cognitive and metacognitive strategies used in the problem-posing process and the purposes of the participants for using them, studies examining strategies used in problem-solving, problem-posing, and reading processes were investigated (e.g., Karnain et al, 2014;Kumlu, 2012;Mishra & Iyer, 2015). This form consisted of fifteen main items and some sub-items.…”

Investigating problem-posing during math walks in informal learning spaces

“…Problem-posing activities can promote both students' metacognitive skills (Karnain et al, 2014 ) and their mathematical dispositions (Silver, 1994 ; Wang et al, 2021 ). Specifically, suppose students are given a mathematical problem, they are required to generate some similar problems.…”

Relationship between middle school students metacognition and problem-posing performance: A serial mediation analysis

“…Studies have indicated that metacognition, together with intrinsic characteristics (such as motivation, control, willingness and reinforcement), are important factors for students to pose problems. For example, Karnain et al (2014) emphasised that metacognition is a critical element for problem posing. The authors claim that students with improved metacognitive skills will also have developed problem-posing skills.…”