The Relationship between Metacognitive Awareness and Academic Success of Medical students at Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences

Introduction: Students' academic success is one of the important indicators of evaluating the performance of the higher education system. One of the factors influencing academic success is metacognitive awareness and knowledge and control of thinking and cognition. Therefore, assessment of its status helps in planning its promotion. The study aimed to investigate the relationship between metacognitive awareness and academic success of medical students at Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences. Methods: Pearson parametric correlation was performed after stratified sampling method concerning 255 medical students with Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (MAI) of Schraw & Dennison (1994) with eight subscales and scoring of zero (incorrect) and one (correct). For  academic success, the total grade point average was measured. The reliability and validity of the inventory were also determined. Result: Out of 255 participants, 95 (37.3%) were male and 160 (62.7%) were female. The minimum and maximum ages were 19 and 26 years, respectively. Totally, 85 first-year students, 85 after-the-basic-sciences exam students, and 85 senior learners were present. The lowest and highest grade point averages were 10.9 and 19.6, respectively. The relationship between academic success and metacognitive awareness in general in all students using Pearson correlation coefficient was 0.791 at a significant level of 0.0001. There was the highest correlation between GPA and subscales of real knowledge as for metacognition and metacognition control, and information management. In all students, the highest mean rank of metacognitive skills was related to the dimension of performance effectiveness and strategy analysis. Conclusion: There exists a relationship between students' metacognitive awareness and academic success at Shahid Beheshti University of Medical Sciences which can be used in educational planning.