Metacognition and It : the Influence of Self - Efficacy and Self - Awareness

Organizations are increasingly relying on employees to self-manage their learning needs. Therefore, it is important for individuals to accurately assess their IT knowledge because accurate self-assessment is critical to effective self-management. Metacognition represents individuals' self-monitoring and self-regulating abilities, and plays a key role in self-managed learning. This study examines two dimensions of metacognition self-efficacy and self-awareness. We aim to understand how self-efficacy and self-awareness influence individuals’ metacognitive process and contribute toward increased effectiveness in self-managed learning. We argue that greater confidence in ability will result in increased self-awareness and learning outcomes in IT. Study findings suggest that increased computer self-efficacy is related to increased self-awareness and over-estimation. Low confidence in abilities was found to be related to under-estimation and lower levels of self-awareness. Therefore, under-estimation was found to be detrimental to learning outcomes while overconfidence was found to be beneficial. Further research is required to understand the threshold between beneficial and detrimental miscalibrated self-awareness.