by Ferdinand Doepel, Trinity School, Croydon
Research questions:
- To what extent do metacognitive methods enable students in Lower 6th to improve their study habit?
- What is the effect on their mental health?
Context and Rationale:
According to the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF, 2018) metacognition and self-regulation offers high impact intervention techniques for very low cost as shown by extensive evidence.
Metacognition is the process of monitoring and controlling our thought process. It is taking the time to think about what we do, why we do it and how to potentially get better at it.
As a form tutor for students in lower sixth I wanted to explore how useful these metacognitive techniques might be for them and how applicable they are to their context. This felt particularly relevant given the recent lockdown and remote learning as well as the increasing likelihood of future episodes of remote learning. Despite being in daily contact with the students virtually, the thinking was that they are likely to face a heavier burden in terms of being independent and looking after themselves while not coming into school.
Introduction:
As a Form Tutor I see the students in the mornings for 20 minutes and in the afternoons for ten minutes. There are 12 students in my form and they range in age from 16-17 years old. They are currently in lower sixth and many are finding the step-up to A Level academically challenging. The idea is to find out whether there are relevant techniques that can help students with their personal growth, curiosity and exploration.
The plan for the study is outlined below:
- Engage with the literature – what does the existing research say?
- Collection of baseline data – what is the students’ starting point?
- Discussion with students – identification of main issues and relevant techniques
- Intervention – introduction of techniques to students
- Collection of post-intervention data – did said techniques make a difference?
Research question(s):
- How to best implement metacognition in Trinity School?
- How can schools best use metacognition so support students to be independent learners/more in charge of their own learning?
- What does the research suggest students and teachers should know about metacognition?
Even though I will be focusing exclusively on a Lower Sixth tutor group, these questions are of a broader nature. The idea is that this case study could act as a pilot scheme to test the options for potentially introducing metacognition on a wider scale. Thus I believe the scope of this study is ambitious and given the time frame, it is unrealistic that I will be able to fully answer these questions. The aim is to use this as a starting point before proceeding to take this further in future years.
Research method(s):
The intended research method for this study is that of a mixed-method. I will use a combination of quantitative data, e.g. through initial surveys, and qualitative date, in the form of follow-up interviews, in order to gather the most accurate picture of what the current situation is like.
The aspects being studied is students in the Lower Sixth and their use of time during form time twice daily. I will make use of elicited data.
Results and discussion:
One thing was clearly noticeable when speaking to the students and also highlighted in the initial survey. This was that they naturally do think about their thinking. This can be seen in the chart below:
From the pie chart we can see that 64% of the respondents think about their thoughts at least ‘sometimes’. However, as the next pie chart shows, this thinking is often limited to just that, i.e. thinking. When it comes to ‘monitoring’ their thoughts, which of course is a huge part of metacognition, there was a sharp fall in the number of students doing it. Only 45% of students said they did this at least ‘sometimes’.
The final finding of the initial survey that caught my attention is shown below. Different ways of learning the subject, with more active use of metacognition being one of them, is clearly not a big part of their lessons. In other words, it seems that students do spend time thinking about their thoughts, i.e. what could be considered the initial step required for metacognition to develop, but that they lack the tools needed to do so successfully. These tools could clearly be provided to them during lessons as part of a drive to strengthen in this area.
The idea that students will naturally learn to think isn’t new, as pointed out by Carol McGuiness (2019), professor of Psychology. However, this does not necessarily translate to skilful thinking. This is where metacognition might come in. In order to not drown the students in my form with technical language and a whole new vocabulary, we instead focused on a simple exercise developed by McGuiness.
Carol McGuiness – Pause and Reflect
1) What have we learnt today?
2) How have we learnt it?
I encouraged the students in Lower Sixth to think about these two questions during afternoon registrations. We then proceeded to ask the same questions during morning registration, i.e. getting the students to think ahead and prepare for their upcoming lessons. During afternoon registrations we would once again go back and reflect on the two questions.
Before having time to assess the potential impact of this simple exercise, external factors intervened and we were once again back to remote teaching in January 2021. At this point the mental health of the students seemed more important than ever, which is why the focus of this project shifted slightly. We used registration times to have chats in small groups and focused on the points included below:
Reflection chats:
1. Mindfulness (How to Monitor and Control thoughts). How could this be applied to learning? What were the thoughts, feelings and behaviour that the students noticed had the biggest impact on their learning and wellbeing?
2. Weekly review (Challenging the students to be proactive). What had recently been really good/fun? What had they found frustrating/boring? What would they do differently?
3. Looking ahead (Were there parts they might be able to control?). What did they anticipate? What could they do differently? Are there any ‘levers’ they could control? If so, where?
4. Were they able to change their scripts? Are there noticeable patterns?
Once we discussed the factors that had the biggest influence on the students and their wellbeing, a few stood out due to the frequency with which they were being mentioned.
1. Sleep
2. Habits
3. Nutrition
4. Use of Technology
5. Exercise
At this point we were back in school and started focusing on what the students noticed, when monitoring their thoughts, as a result of pausing and reflecting. This, in essence, was just another take on McGuiness two questions, but hopefully it would start to have an impact on the students’ way of thinking. I would for example also ask them the following simple follow-up question: “How organised are you?”. I would then ask them to notice their thoughts and pay attention to them when reflecting on their own level of organisation. (Notice and pay attention).
Conclusions:
At this point it was clear that this project wouldn’t be as straightforward as it might have seemed at the start. We had moved between periods of being in school, doing remote teaching as well as school holidays.
As a result of individual conversations with the students it became clear to me that the most productive use of time, from the students’ point of view, would be to focus on their habits. More specifically, the idea was to use metacognition to highlight that they are in control of their habits and help them to consciously develop habits that would benefit them.
Evaluation
As highlighted earlier, it was always going to be an ambitious project, to try and answer the research questions as set out above, in the time frame given. The inquiry did evolve and adapt as the year went on. The key findings were that metacognition is useful and that the students are willing to learn provided they can see the rationale for it. It was surprising to see that, despite our commitment as an institution to learning we aren’t actively pursuing this at the moment.
My next step will be to carry on working with my form as they transition into Upper Sixth. We will continue to work on their habits with the aim of equipping them with the tools necessary to succeed beyond secondary school. I look forward to exploring how metacognition can play a part in this.
Research Ethics
Before carrying out the survey I told the students in my form about the aims of the research and asked if they were willing to take part. I explained that any answers and potential quotes would be anonymised and explained that they were all able to withdraw their consent at any time. They all agreed to take part in the research.
References
Atomic Habits – by James Clear (https://jamesclear.com/atomic-habits)
Education Endowment Foundation (2018): https://educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/evidence-summaries/teaching-learning-toolkit/meta-cognition-and-self-regulation/)
Professor Carol McGuiness (2019)
(https://education.gov.scot/improvement/practice-exemplars/carol-mcguiness-the-case-for-thinking-skills/_