The Self-Efficacy as Predictors of the Metacognition Awareness in Children

Abstract

It is important for children to have some skills and competencies in the acquisition of effective learning skills. Metacognition awareness that allow children to become aware of what they know and think to learn a knowledge and build on the knowledge they will learn in this process; they need to be self-efficacy in order to accomplish a task and to be able to come up with new problems or situations. In this context, the research aimed to determine whether self-efficacy in children predicts metacognition awareness, and also the results of the relationship between self-efficacy and metacognition and the validity and reliability of the measurement tools used are included in the study. In the research, the correlational survey model, which is one of the quantitative research method, is used to determine the relationship between two or more variables. The study group of this study consists of 350 children aged between 12 and 14 years, continuing to middle schools which are depends on Ministry of National Education in Turkey. The Personal Information Form, "Self-Efficacy Scale for Children" and "Scale of Metacognition for Children" were used together to collect the data of the study. The reliability coefficients of the measuring instruments were determined with the Cronbach alpha coefficient, after the fitting of the measuring instruments used in the study was confirmed on the working sample. The Cronbach's alpha coefficient for the self-efficacy scale for children were calculated .88; and the Cronbach's alpha coefficient for the metacognition scale for children were calculated as .92. To investigate the relationship between self-efficacy and metacognition awareness, the Pearson Moments Multiplication Correlation Coefficient is calculated and confirmatory factor analysis was used to check the fit of the scales with the sample group. It has been determined that self-efficacy is a predictor of metacognition awareness according to the results of multiple regression to examine whether self-efficacy beliefs in children are predictive of metacognition awareness. The development of metacognition and self-efficacy levels together in children is one of the issues to be emphasized by parents and educators.