Relationship between Metacognitive Awareness and Reflective Learning of Medical Students at the Faculty of Medicine, Suez Canal University

Abstract

Aim: To examine the relationship between reflective thinking and metacognitive awareness to help medical students to be independent learners who can control their learning and improve their professional performance.
 Study Design: It is a cross-sectional correlational study.
 Place and Duration of the Study: This study was conducted at the Faculty of Medicine-Suez Canal University in August 2018.
 Methodology: This is a cross-sectional correlational study; the study population included the undergraduate medical students in all study years at the Faculty of Medicine, Suez Canal University. The sample was 264 randomly selected students by using a cluster sampling technique. The instruments that were used for data collection were the Metacognitive Awareness Inventory (MAI) to measure students’ metacognitive awareness levels, Reflection-in-Learning Scale (RLS) to measure the students’ reflective learning levels.
 Results: The descriptive statistics of both MAI and RLS total scores of students in the six study years revealed that students have mean total MAI total scores = 178 ± 26 and have mean total RLS total scores = 60 ± 13.
 The Spearman's correlation between the metacognitive awareness and the reflective learning skills of medical students revealed that there was a statistically significant high positive correlation between the metacognitive awareness and the reflection in the learning of FOM-SCU students (p= 0.699, p-value<0.0001).
 Multiple regression analysis revealed that the weighted combination of the predictor variables explained approximately 50% of the variance of reflection in learning.
 Conclusion: It is concluded from this study that the students at the Faculty of Medicine, Suez Canal University have fair to good metacognitive awareness and partial to ample reflective abilities. There is a significantly high positive relationship between metacognitive awareness and the reflective learning skills of medical students.

Leveraging Techniques of Epistemic Network Analysis to Discover Behaviors of Student Learning Reflections in Online Learning Environments

“…For example, students may be asked to recall their experience of the course, assess both the experience and the knowledge gained, and suggest adjustments for their future learning [2,6]. Letting students plan, manage, evaluate, and reflect on their learning and progress means that they take an active role in achieving their academic goals and are aware of their cognitive processes [7][8][9].…”