What is Metacognitive Skill? Collaborative Learning Strategy to Facilitate Development of Metacognitive Skill

Recently, how to support development of a learner’s metacognitive skill is one of the most important topics in the research area of educational support systems. However, it is difficult for the researchers in the area to share research findings and reuse them each other, because there is a lack of common vocabulary to represent metacognitive phenomena and shared understandings of them. It causes some confusion in the studies about metacognition and metacognitive skill. In this paper, we provide a common platform towards constructing common vocabulary and shared understandings of them. Then, we introduce our model of metacognitive skill and describe difficulties in learning and executing the skill. Based on our model, we also propose a learning support environment where learners develop their metacognitive skills through collaborative learning. Introduction The term metacognition has been used mainly in psychological area since the publication of Flavell’s paper (1976). Many researchers have been believed that metacognition is associated with intelligence (e.g., Borkowski, et al. 1987; Sternberg, 1984, 1986a, 1986b) and they refer metacognition to higher order thinking which involves active control over the cognitive processes engaged in learning (Livingston, 1997). So, recently, to support development of learners’ metacognitive skills is one of the most important topics in the research area of educational support systems. The purpose of our study is to support processes in which learners develop their metacognitive skills. Metacognition is often simply defined as “thinking about thinking” (Livingston, 1997), or “cognition of cognition” (Flavell, 1976). However, defining metacognition is not simple. Although the term has been part of the vocabulary of educational psychology for the last couple of decades, there is still much debate over what metacognition exactly means. One reason for this confusion is the fact that there are several terms currently used to describe the same basic phenomenon (e.g., self-regulation, executive control), or an aspect of that phenomenon (e.g., meta-memory), and these terms are often used interchangeably in the literature (Brown 1987, Carver & Scheier 1998, Davidson, et al. 1994, Flavell 1976, Hacker 1998, King 1999, Kluwe 1982, Livingston 1997, Lories, et al. 1998, Nelson & Narens 1994, Winne & Hadwin 1998, Yzerbyt, et al. 1998). Another reason is the confusion that is thrown by two approaches to metacognition. Some researchers consider metacognitive skill as somewhat special cognitive activity and trying to clarify its mechanism (Rivers 2001; Schraw 1998; Kluwe 1982; Nelson & Narens 1994). Other researchers suppose that metacognitive skill is similar process with cognitive skill (Livingston 1997; Lories, et al. 1998). While there are some distinctions between definitions (Van Zile-Tamsen, 1994, 1996), all emphasize the role of executive processes in the overseeing and regulation of cognitive processes. To advance the study of metacognitive skill and of the methods how to develop the metacognitive skill, we should construct common vocabulary to represent cognitive and metacognitive phenomena (Mizoguchi & Bourdeau 2000). The common vocabulary of metacognitive skill makes us to share mutually understandings, store the result of our studies, and reuse and reconstruct the results of the studies. In this paper, first, we clarify the target of our educational support system through defining some concepts related to metacognition. Although our definition may be rough and insufficient, we believe it will be useful to share the concepts. Next, we propose our model of metacognitive skill and consider difficulties in mastering the skill. Finally, we propose a collaborative learning strategy as an appropriate method to facilitate development of learners’ metacognitive skill. What Is “Metacognitive Skill” ? Livingston (1997) describes that metacognition is one of the latest buzz words in educational psychology, but what exactly is metacognition? Flavell’s simple definition has already been not adequate to consider how to support