The metacognitive performance of 87 hearing and 20 deaf/hard of hearing students was examined. The hearing students consisted of 42 males (mean age 15.6 years) and 45 females (mean age 15.4 years). The deaf/hard of hearing students consisted of 13 males (mean age 16.9 years) and 7 females (mean age 15.9 years). Metacognition was conceptualized in terms of choosing the best response to problematic situations drawing upon problem-solving and logical reasoning skills. In the test, pictures represented various daily life interactions. There was no significant difference between hearing and deaf/hard of hearing students in metacognitive performance, nor was there a gender-based significant difference among the deaf/hard of hearing students. However, hearing female students scored significantly higher on the metacognitive test than hearing male students. Further analysis of the study findings possibly would show students' overall performance on the metacognitive test to be independent of grade point average. Analysis did show, however, a significant negative correlation between test performance and grades in Arabic among deaf/hard of hearing students.
T heory of Mind (see, e.g., Bartsch & Estes, 1996) is a concept that can help educators understand how students think about their state of mind and that of others involved in various life situations. To examine the impact of culture and the impact of hearing loss on metacognition as explained by Theory of Mind, two samples of students with and without hearing losses who were from two different cultures were compared on their ability to choose pictures representing their perspectives on specific life situations. The two groups did not differ in their metacognitive interpretations of the experiences when they were from the same culture, although students from different cultures did differ, indicating that culture may have a greater impact on metacognition as explained by Theory of Mind than hearing loss. Data collected in the present study affirmed previous research showing that students with hearing losses could make metacognitive decisions about life situations just as ably as their hearing peers from the same culture.
The metacognitive performance of four groups of students was examined. The students' processes of visual analysis and discrimination of real-life pictures were used to measure metacognition. There were 61 participants: 18 hearing students, 18 deaf and hard of hearing students, 16 students with mild mental disabilities, and 9 students with physical disabilities. Analysis revealed no significant differences among hearing students, deaf and hard of hearing students, and students with physical disabilities. The performance of these three groups of students was significantly better than the performance of students with mild mental disabilities. It appears that students with mild mental disabilities encountered difficulties with pictures that required complex visual analyses and discriminations. These difficulties were manifested in a form of deficient simultaneous visual processing along with a low level of knowledge acquisition.
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