The development of metacognition in primary school learning environments

Constructivist ideas have influenced recent major innovations in Dutch secondary education and new curricula for reading and math in primary education, for example, pay much more attention to metacognition than before. In our study, we compared the growth of student metacognition in varying learning environments, direct instruction, and cognitive apprenticeship in primary school. The study also included a control group of teachers. In order to measure metacognition we developed a questionnaire, with separate parts for metacognitive skills and metacognitive knowledge. In the item selection procedure we made use of item response modeling. It was found that in the direct instruction and the cognitive apprenticeship group the pupils had higher scores on metacognitive skills and metacognitive knowledge compared to the control group pupils. No clear differences were found between direct instruction and cognitive apprenticeship. Interactions of learning environment and student intelligence were non-significant for both output measures.