The development of two observational tools for assessing metacognition and self-regulated learning in young children

Abstract

This paper reports on observational approaches developed within a UK study to the identification and assessment of metacognition and self-regulation in young children in the 3-5 year age range. It is argued that the development of observational tools, although containing methodological difficulties, allows us to make more valid assessments of children's metacognitive and self-regulatory abilities in this age group. The analysis of 582 metacognitive or self-regulatory videotaped 'events' is described, including the development of a coding framework identifying verbal and non-verbal indicators. The construction of an observational instrument, the Children's Independent Learning Development (CHILD 3-5) checklist, is also reported together with evidence of the reliability with which it can be used by classroom teachers and early indications of its external validity as a measure of metacognition and self-regulation in young children. Given the educational significance of children's development of metacognitive and self-regulatory skills, it is argued that the development of such an instrument is potentially highly beneficial. The establishment of the metacognitive and self-regulatory capabilities of young children by means of the kinds of observational tools developed within this study also has clear and significant implications for models and theories of metacognition and self-regulation. The paper concludes with a discussion of these implications.Keywords Metacognitive development . Self-regulated learning . Observational methods . Young children This paper argues for the efficacy of using observational methods in naturalistic settings in the identification and assessment of metacognition and self-regulation in young children.

The relation between Assessment for Learning and elementary students' cognitive and metacognitive strategy use

“…For long, research on self-regulation has prevalently focused on older students as scholars questioned whether younger students possessed the knowledge and strategies necessary for self-regulated learning (Paris & Newman, 1990;Zimmerman, 1990). Increasingly, however, researchers postulate that students in elementary school are able to regulate their learning (e.g., Perry, 1998;Whitebread et al, 2009). In a similar vein, research focuses more and more on identifying classroom conditions that foster the development of cognitive and metacognitive strategies (Ley & Young, 2001;Paris & Paris, 2001;Perry & VandeKamp, 2000).…”

A New Context Affording for Regulation: The Case of Musical Play

“…These results and approach can be considered crucial to informing self-regulation research and practice and establishing musical play's importance in this regard. 3 The CHILD achieves high levels of internal consistency amongst its 22 statements (Cronbach alpha=.97), and provides high inter-rater reliability (level of agreement= 85.9%) (Whitebread et al, 2009b) …”

“…This study reported that different areas of selfregulatory behaviours appeared at different rates, with metacognitive regulation being the most prevalent, followed by metacognitive knowledge, and emotional/motivational regulation behaviours being the least frequent (Whitebread et al 2009a). More specifically, playful situations appeared to mainly promote monitoring, control and planning behaviours (Whitebread et al, 2009b) The Social Nature of Self-regulation Notwithstanding the traditional focus on the individual element of selfregulated learning (Zimmerman, 1989), the social nature of regulation is currently an increasingly central theme (Hadwin, Oshige, Gress, & Winne, 2010;Volet, Vauras, & Salonen, 2009). Current research suggests that, apart from self-regulated learning, attention should be directed towards co- Affording for Regulation regulation and socially-shared regulation (Hadwin, Järvelä, & Miller, 2011;Iiskala, Vauras, & Lehtinen, 2004).…”

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