Metacognition and Self-Regulation in James, Piaget, and Vygotsky

Abstract

This article investigates the intertwined constructs of metacognition and selfregulation as they emerge in the works and theories of James, Piaget, and Vygotsky. To coordinate this exploration, we use an interpretive framework based on the relation of subject and object. In this framework, James's perspective on metacognition and selfregulation is aligned with the Self, Piaget's with the other and object, and Vygotsky's with the medium or agency of language. We explore how metacognition and self-regulation function within the realm of human behavior and development as described in the works of each of these theorists. Key questions or issues that emerge for current research are outlined, and the limitations and benefits of each theorist's perspective vis-à-vis metacognition and self-regulation are discussed.Metacognition and self-regulation have become well established, although not necessarily well-defined, as valuable areas for educational psychology research (e.g., Dinsmore et al., this issue). Along the way, there have been efforts to clarify and ground such research by looking back to the roots of these constructs in one or another historically important theory or theoretical framework (e.g., Bråten 1991a, b;Brown 1987;Flavell 1992;Zimmerman 2001). Here we engage in a similar effort, looking at metacognition and self-regulation in the theories of James, Piaget, and Vygotsky. The work of these three foundational theorists, taken together, provides an integrated, complementary set of perspectives on the "incestuously related" (Brown 1987, p. 66) phenomena of metacognition and selfregulation. Rather than looking back to trace the roots of researchers' current uses of these constructs, we take these theorists as our starting place in order to pull out their insights into how metacognition and self-regulation develop and function in human beings, as viewed within Educ Psychol Rev (

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