Effects of an Intervention Programme for the Development of Metacognitive Skills in Secondary School Students

The aim of this paper is to present the results of an intervention programme for the development of metacognitive skills applied to a group of lower secondary education students at a school in Saragossa (Spain). The programme consisted of nine structured sessions carried out over a period of seven months. The study used a repeated measure quasi-experimental design with a non-equivalent control group. The sample included 45 participants aged 13 to 14 years. ANOVA results showed significant metacognitive skill development in the experimental group and nonsignificant metacognitive skill development towards significance between the two study groups. To improve the results of the programme, the generalisability theory was applied, which suggested the programme was effective, despite the need to increase the number of exercises to improve the intervention, to obtain significant results thereafter. The conclusions of this paper point out that if metacognitive thinking skills development is incorporated into teacher training processes and into teaching-learning processes, secondary school students’ learning improves