Skills

Metacognitions about study activities and strategy use were assessed in 166 fifth and sixth graders (54 percent female and 39 percent African American), 108 seventh and eighth graders (55 percent female and 32 percent African American), and 168 college students (60 percent female, 10 percent African American, and 10 percent from other ethnic groups). Via a self-report questionnaire requiring responses on a 5-point scale, participants reported their uses of study strategies, including rote strategies, cognitive strategies, self-regulatory activities while studying, and persistence in academic tasks. Factor analyses yielded no common factor solution to characterize fifth and sixth graders, seventh and eighth graders, and college students. Three-factor solutions for the age groups ' reports of study activities indicated a developmental trend for increasing differentiation of lower-level (rote) strategies and higher-level (meaning-based) strategies emerging with such differentiation in the junior high school years. Two tables present study findings. An appendix contains the questionnaire items used to measure metacognitions. (SLD) ****************************************o****************************** Reproductions supplied by EDRS arP the best that can be made from the original document