Metacognition refers to an individual’s knowledge, control/regulation, and awareness/monitoring of his/her thinking and learning processes. A more simplistic and less useful definition often used is that metacognition is thinking about one’s own thinking. Research and scholarship in metacognition in science education typically draws on metacognition theory from educational psychology and engages and adapts that theory to address issues regarding the learning and teaching of science. Metacognition is executive, higher-order thinking that is superordinate to but that also interacts closely with the cognitive processes that students employ to construct knowledge and develop understanding via their science learning experiences. Successful science learners are consistently found to be adaptively metacognitive for the demands of their learning environments. While it might be appealing to view an individual’s metacognition as good or bad, this is a simplistic notion. Rather, what might be...
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Thomas, G.P. (2014). Metacognition and Science Learning. In: Gunstone, R. (eds) Encyclopedia of Science Education. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6165-0_343-7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-6165-0_343-7
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