Methodological and methodical foundations for studying meta-cognitive determinants of activity

Modern meta-cognitivism has formulated certain key methodological and methodical problems but left them unsolved. To overcome this limitation this paper presents a new methodological approach to studying meta-cognitive determinants of activity – the principle of activity-mediated research of meta-cognitive processes and personality traits. This approach provided a basis for elaborating the complex of new research techniques for revealing the features of the meta-cognitive regulation of activity: (a) the technique of “activity probing”, (b) the technique of “style differentiation”, (c) the technique of “reflective stratification”, and (d) the technique of “factorial decompositions”. These techniques are constructive means for obtaining ecologically valid data on the specificity of the meta-cognitive regulation of activity. The paper brings forward the results of studies with the application of these techniques. By using these techniques, the explication of many new and previously undescribed features of the meta-cognitive regulation of activity becomes possible. In particular, generative synergistic effects resulting from synthesizing the key metacognitive processes and factors were revealed and interpreted. The two main types of meta-processes – meta-cognitive and meta-regulative – had facilitative (i. e. synergistic) associations in the structure of activity. This considerably expands the general cognitiveregulating potential of a subject. This finding also supports the resource approach to the interpretation of meta-cognitive factors. The results of the study determined general directions in approaching one of the most important problems of modern meta-cognitivism – overcoming its out-of-activity nature and, accordingly, its synthesis with the psychological theory of activity.