Metacognition: A Simple Way for Students to Improve Their Grades

Here’s a simple way to increase your grades. Strategize how you’ll study and think about how you think. That’s all you need to do says Stanford postdoctoral researcher Patricia Chen. It sounds easy enough but it isn’t seeing as many students just jump in to studying without having a plan of attack.

A recent Quartz article notes that experiments conducted by Chen, half a university class were given prompts to get them thinking about how they would study for an introductory stats class exam while the other half of the class were only given a reminder that their exam was coming up and that they should get ready. Those who reflected outperformed those in the control group be a third of a letter grade (from a B+ to an A).

There is enough research on and appetite for the topic of metacognition and its effects on self-regulation and learning that it even has it’s own dedicated journal. The challenge becomes finding ways to package the practical tips for students in easy-to-use ways so that they’ll want to do it.

In her experiments, Chen’s approach was just that. 10 days before a test, students in the intervention group received a 15-minute survey asking them to think about their test, the kind of grade they wanted, how important that grade was to them and how likely they felt that grade was for them. They were then asked to imagine what kinds of questions would be on the exam as well as from a list of 15 class resources how each one could be used to help them achieve the grade they envisioned getting on the test. The resources included things like lecture notes, practice exam questions, textbook readings, instructor office hours, peer discussions and private tutoring.

Besides slightly higher grades, those students in the intervention group also noted that they felt less stressed compared with their peers and in more control over their performance by engaging in what effectively added up to a study plan.

So metacognition provides us with another way to take an active role in our own learning. In doing so, it doesn’t seem too surprising that there would be some sort of relationship between decreased level of testing stress with an increase in feelings of performance control.

Here’s a sampling of metacognitive strategies taken from an excellent article on the topic by Connie Malamed.

1. Ask questions

2. Foster self-reflection

3. Provide access to mentors

4. Solve problems with a team

5. Think aloud

6. Allow for making errors and failing