The Relationship between Meta-Cognitive Awareness of Faculty Members and Higher Order Thinking Instruction to Students

Introduction: Metacognitive awareness is crucial to the adoption and application of proven educational initiatives. The purpose of this study was to determine the relationship between meta-cognitive awareness of faculty members, and higher order thinking instruction to students in Isfahan University of Medical Science within 2009- 2010 academic years. Methods: This descriptive- correlation study included two study populations. The first one was full-time faculty members of Isfahan University of Medical Science out of which 36 were selected using proportional stratified sampling. The other population was second and third year undergraduate students of Isfahan University of Medical Sciences out of whom 360 were selected by simple random sampling. The data gathering instruments were Met-cognitive Awareness Inventory (MAI) distributed among faculty members, and Higher Order Thinking Instruction Questionnaire (HOTIQ) developed by the authors of this study and completed by students under investigation. For data analysis, descriptive and inferential statistics (correlation coefficients and linear regression analysis) were used. Results: The findings showed that there was a significant correlation between faculties’ meta-cognitive awareness and the higher order thinking instruction to students (P<0.01, r= 0.81). But this feature does not increase with age and teaching experience. The findings of regression analysis also showed that meta-cognitive awareness along with its two components (metacognitive knowledge and cognitive regulation) can explain 0.85 percent of variance in higher order thinking instruction (P<0.01). Conclusion: The results indicate that the metacognitive awareness of faculty members is related to higher order thinking instruction to students. Accordingly, teaching metacognitive shills and awareness to faculty members must be placed in the plans of higher education institutions.