Promoting metacognitive skills in the context of chemistry education

Scientific literacy, thinking skills and metacognition continue to be increasingly
important goals of science education reforms. These goals can be achieved via
learning science in context and learning scientific concepts and processes through
real-world problems. The theoretical framework of this chapter builds on theories
of Flavell and Bandura. Following the distinction Flavell made between cognition
and metacognition, and based on Bandura, we have adopted the assertion that self-
regulated learning (SRL) is composed of cognition, metacognition, and motivation.
In this chapter, we use the construct students’ actual knowledge as the knowledge
at the cognitive domain, and students’ perceived knowledge as the knowledge at
the metacognitive domain. While our study does not focus on motivation, learning
in the context of food chemistry, environment and societal problems, served as a
vehicle for motivating the students to study chemistry. We present students’
assignments as examples that focus on several topics: food, energy, and reaction
rate. These assignments will serve as a basis for illustrating materials from the
classroom. The Taste of Chemistry module will also serve as the research setting.
Students’ self-regulated learning and the effective use of chemistry understanding
levels are promoted via a built-in metacognitive tool. Our results indicate the
potential contribution of self-regulated learning and metacognition to chemistry
education.