A model study to examine the relationship between metacognitive and motivational regulation and metacognitive experiences during problem solving in mathematics

Abstract

The main aim of the study was to investigate students’ poor problem solving performance within a self-regulation framework. The relations between students’ metacognitive experiences, metacognition and motivational regulations were thought to be an appropriate point of view to approach the problem of mathematical problem solving. Students’ feelings of difficulty, familiarity and understanding, estimated effort and predicted solution correctness factors were examined under metacognitive experiences. Self-efficacy and effort were indicators of motivational regulation factor. Awareness, selfchecking, evaluation and use of cognitive strategies were included as the indicators of metacognitive regulation factor. The relationships were investigated and the proposed model was tested with the data of 406 students obtained from eight grade students from public (N=252) and private (N=154) schools. Convenient sampling method was used in the data collection process of the study. The data provided empirical evidence for the proposed model on the framework. The results demonstrated significant relations between metacognitive and motivational regulation, metacognitive experiences and mathematical problem solving performance. A significantly high correlation was found between metacognitive and motivational regulation. Although motivational and metacognitive experience had direct effects on student’s problem solving performance, metacognitive regulation did not. On the other hand, metacognitive and motivational regulation had indirect effects on problem solving performance through the mediation of metacognitive experiences. Type of school differences were evident for most variables, whereas gender differences were not.