METACOGNITIVE AWARENESS OF COLLEGE STUDENTS: PERSPECTIVES OF AGE AND GENDER

The study examined the perspectives of age and gender on the development of metacognitive awareness of college students. Four hundred students including equal number of boys and girls in five age groups of 14 to 24 years were administered the Metacognitive Awareness Inventoryto measure their metacognitive knowledge, regulation and executive control. Each of these constructs was measured through its relevant skills. With respect to the nature of development, the results showed low, slow but consistent development of the skills across the span of 10 years of college life. The developments were also observed to follow the predicted sequence, i.e., metacognitive knowledge, followed by metacognitive regulation, and then, metacognitive control and execution. Some directions in the issue of gender difference were also observed that overall, girls are significantly better than boys in metacognitive knowledge while boys in metacognitive regulation. However, they did not show any difference in metacognitive control and execution, the supposed higher order skill of metacognitive awareness.