Connecting teachers’ classroom instructions with children’s metacognition and learning in elementary school

van Loon, Mariëtte H.; Bayard, Natalie S.; Steiner, Martina; Roebers, Claudia M. (2020). Connecting teachers’ classroom instructions with children’s metacognition and learning in elementary school. Metacognition and learning, 16(3), pp. 623-650. Springer 10.1007/s11409-020-09248-2

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Many children have difficulties with accurate self-monitoring and effective regulation of
study, and this may cause them to miss learning opportunities. In the classroom, teachers
play a key role in supporting children with metacognition and learning. The present study
aimed to acquire insights into how teachers’ cognitive and metacognitive strategy
instruction, as well as teacher-directed and child-centered instructional practices are
related to children’s self-monitoring accuracy, regulation of study, and learning performance. Twenty-one teachers and 308 children (2nd and 4th grade elementary school)
participated. Teachers instructed a secret code task, children had to learn the match
between letters of the alphabet and corresponding symbols. Teachers were observed
and audio-recordings were made of their instructions. Then, children were asked to (a)
make restudy selections, (b) complete a test, and (c) self-monitor test performance.
Although teachers both addressed cognitive and metacognitive strategies, they more often
instructed children about cognitive strategies. Further, teaching practices were more often
teacher-directed than child-centered. Although there were no relations between teachers’
instructions for metacognitive strategies and children’s outcome measures, teaching
cognitive strategies was positively associated with children’s performance and selfmonitoring accuracy. However, teaching cognitive strategies did not predict effective
restudy selections. Rather, child-centered instructions (i.e., giving children autonomy to
regulate their own learning) positively predicted children’s restudy, and further, children’s
self-monitoring was more accurate in classrooms where teachers more often used childcentered instructional practices. This seems to imply that not only the content of the
instructions itself, but particularly the way these are given, affects children’s
metacognition.

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